Oronia:Zero - Public Pre-Design Documentation

"Here in lies everything beyond space, time, reality, and everything else.

This you would inherit.

If only you would remember the name..."

Classification

    Oronia:Zero is a linear 2d action adventure game, closer to a hack and slash, that aims to have a playstyle inspired by fighting games.

    The story and world is inspired by series such as The Legend of Zelda, Shin Megami Tensei, Drakengard,(to a lesser extent Nier), Etrian Odyssey, The X-Files, Dragon's Dogma, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Valkyrie Profile, Berserk, Zone of the Enders, The Cthulhu Mythos, Shadow of The Colossus, Final Fantasy- ... So on... to name a few, and also takes ideas from quantum theory, wave function and collapse models, as well as Jungian Philosophy. And probably more vagely... an eclectic mix of religions.

There are some horror elements invoked but Oronia isn't a horror series lol.

Despite all of this, the rating being aimed for here is T for Teen+ or 12+. In case you: The Reader, are wondering.

Oronia Zero will have no blood... Because there's no blood left to shed.

Synopsis

    The game takes place from the lens of the player character, a person named and called "Risma" though the player can choose their player name in concept. The world and characters' origins are set up to be a mystery to the player, and even Risma themselves has a mystery the player must decipher through the story. The player character is defined by only a few traits, their white hair, goldish cloak, azure knife, and crimson flute. They are also themselves mostly silent by nature, though a personality can be inferred through text and dialogue. Initially, what Risma's goal actually is, is left vague but it's in the end seemingly a very simple goal: "to reach the ending". What that even means would be revealed in that ending. To this end, the player must climb an ephemeral tower and enter the 12 'Eras' (stages), in which holds records of all verses of origin; Tales from the Progenitor World.

The player would soon come to find that they are not the only ones with such a goal...

(Some of this is subject to change.)

Core Gameplay

    The player character has primary attacks on one button, has a rotatable list of "Notes" on another, these equate to special moves that can alter the way the player approaches combat (simple explaination below on the "Notes" section.)

    Movement is simple. Jumping, dodging, and dashing are the primary ways to maneuver, in Zero there is only one movement speed, which is more or less a fast jog.

There are two main enemy types:
    Normal Enemies- These are shades of a bygone cycle, birthed by remnants of energy created by the soul: Anima. Their forms however are transient, which makes them light work to simply cut down and absorb into your own Anima reserve. But. When these shades retain enough Anima to sustain their forms, they become so much more than shades. These are formed in the world as-
    Ephemera- These amassed clumps of Anima, strangely take the forms of what initially would appear to be non organic shapes. Enough for them to possibly be mistaken for artificial robots, but they are far from such. Though the make up of Ephemera and Normal enemies are much the same, Ephemera minds are drowned in the chaos of multiple souls, and are simply put... 

Much more violent.

When the heart, body, and mind are all rent asunder, only a tattered soul remains.

Unique Actions

Clash- If when attacking, both the player and an enemy of any type have active attack frames intersect, (excluding ranged attacks), this will result in a clash where neither the player nor the enemy will take damage. The screen will Flash and there will be momentary hit-stun to give the player a chance to register that a clash has occurred, from there they can plan react accordingly.

Reversal-Think Street Fighter or anything else for the FGC foreheads out there. Instead of flat out invincibility, some moves have armored start up. Think about what this means. Find those moves and use the armor to mitigate damage while also attacking. The player character will flash yellow when this is successfully pulled off.

Parry- Guard at the perfect time to neutralize all damage.

Burst- Your get out of jail free card. Use your burst stack to get enemies off of you. You unlock up to three in game(I know, crazy right?), so it could be possible to use it in combos. Hypothetically.

"Notes"

Notes equate to skillsets that change the way that the player approaches combat, at current there is planned to only be three but that's subject to change.

Viole Note: The primary note at the start of the game. This note emphasizes melee and offense, Attacks hit harder, and additional melee positional moves are added.

Arche Note: This note emphasizes range and speed. ranged moves are added, along side a ranged attribute to normal attacks.

Garde Note: This note emphasizes area of effect attacks and defense. Additional moves are added with a focus on area of effect. Increases normal attack range, with decreased player stagger rate.

Tldr: You can essentially poise through some attacks, even if you miss a clash.

Enemies - Normal

I don't necessarily have proper names for normal enemies just yet, but until I decide I need more there will only be 4 types.

• Light damage, fast, low health, melee

• Light damage, slow, low health, ranged

• Heavy damage, slow, Higher health, Melee

• Annoying aerial fucker.
  

Enemies - Ephemera

Mostly the same as the above but a bit more unique and possibly quite scary and punishing to fight.
All Ephemera have potential to do some pretty gnarly damage, whether that's through comboing you or landing a powerful attack. I had also thought about some having combo synergy, but I don't know if I want to be that mean or not.

Plus it'd probably be a bit more difficult than I'm prepared for. (Though at the point I'll probably cave and hire some help)

These guys are basically almost miniboss level in conclusion, so they should be taken out before they gather. (of course, there's a limit as to how many can spawn during an encounter.)

This is important: They attract more enemies wherever they go. This is due to their increased concentration of Anima. As in, Enemies will infinitely respawn unless Ephemera are dealt with that encounter, and to top that off, there's a random low chance that another Ephemera will spawn in, drawn by the other.

Enemies - Bosses

There will be 5 Bosses, stacked heavily on the latter half of the game (meaning, that if the player can not get past the first half of the game or happen to miss a VERY clear VERY particular clue, they may be unable to properly "finish", and possibly miss the best part of the game)(which honestly... Is fine by me). At current these bosses are classified as such: "God", "Id", "S.E.", "E.D.", "Creator"

To hallmark this, The player character is Classified as "Ego" *or* as their True name "Risma". For fun we could consider the Player themselves, "Alter Ego".

Though the importance of the whole "Ego" thing is fairly minor and just a spoiler free code-name/pet-name thing.

Each boss has it's own set piece room, and are skill focused (to a degree, as not to be completely impossible to those who have debilitating traits that make them unable to play action games at a high level), urging the player to take what they learn and apply them. However, one boss and only one breaks genre to become something else... So... Be prepared for that I guess.

Three bosses have an (obvious) one hit kill. And for my psychopaths, the idea is that two of those would be I-frame reversal-able.

Routes

While the game is mostly linear and (may require "multiple" playthroughs) there are parts where the story diverges, these will either lock you into the first path or unlock the ending path.

Consider the possibility of a few short alternate endings in both routes; The conclusive ending of the first path leading to the second path which itself also has alternative endings.

 No real "routes" here. That would be incredibly annoying. Alternate endings.

___________________________________________________________________________

    Personally, I've already learned that it's fairly easy to get a little over excited and hop in without setting a defined goal or scope, but that's why we're all here, to learn.

    With my current job basically being an inescapable lifestyle rather than *a job*, I'm due for a bit of a major change if I even want to make one nicely packed game, buuuuut I'm also assuming and fairly confident that I'll be primed to finally sit down and just focus on making and finishing the game completely in 2025-2027 and with luck it actually won't even take that long to finish, until then I'll just focus on inching my way towards full production, pre-coding and experimenting (knocking out any milestones I can), alongside making assets for Zero.

    To explain how serious I am with this plan, although I may or may not want to go back and touch up these things a little prior to release due to skill improvement, all of my presumed BGM, sound effects, Stage Backgrounds/tiles as well as basic movement code are already completed. Through out the years I plan to also start getting more sprite work done, but my main focus is getting the annoying code stuff out of the way. especially for combat.

This page may be edited slightly if things change too drastically. (will be marked as  "Edit: (XXXX/XX/XX)")

...I may have to cope with Zero; you know... the "prequel" (not really) being the only game in this series I get out, since life is getting in the way and as a result, things are going so slowly, but...

Oh well...

 Slow and unsteady wins the race?