#castlevania's designs were a bit all over the place back then lol

[wygolvillage]

been thinking about how i would make a remake/reimagining of simons quest. long post ahead. might be a little stupid since im no game designer or writer or anything lol

random gameplay stuff

it would be metroidvania style, but not all in the castle. imagine it like ooe but the map is interconnected.

i would keep the day/night cycle but it would be less obnoxious of course... probably there would be a little clock on the HUD showing what time it is and how close you are to nightfall. villagers would go inside during the night, but you can still enter churches. churches are your most reliable healing method since save rooms would be pretty sparse in the rest of the world map, and saving at the churches also allows you to skip straight to morning or nightfall if you so desire. being stuck in the middle of the woods during night can be disastrous if the player is ill-prepared since monsters grow stronger then.

there would still be puzzles to figure out and complete, and it would still be a bit cryptic (not to the degree of the original of course), but there is a supporting character i would put in who you can ask for hints at any time, and hers are a lot more straightforward (more on her later). important items are gained through quests rather than bought with hearts, but drop rates would be VERY forgiving since it’s required. like, a villager promises to give you the red crystal if you can get him some fish meat from a merman, which would have about a 40% drop rate... i kind of wanted to preserve the sense of fighting monsters to forage for materials the original has without making the game a total grindfest :P

additionally, materials dropped from monsters can be used to craft food items after simon teams up with the aforementioned supporting character. like i said before, save rooms wouldn’t be super common so it would be implemented as a way to heal yourself when you’re away from town.

the bosses would be decently difficult to compensate with there being very few of them- a true challenge, but they can be beaten with both playable characters if the player is skilled enough

the plot would be expanded upon as well so lemme give a little summary

it begins in simons house where he wakes up having trouble breathing. he’s been struggling with some physical illness ever since battling dracula years prior, especially a nasty bite on his arm he sustained during the fight, and that arm has been turning a pretty nasty shade of grey, like its wasting away. he goes outside to a graveyard near a local church to try and get some fresh air, but it is largely unhelpful. suddenly, he spots an old woman standing at one of the graves. he looks over at him and says mysteriously “ah... must be a horrible night for a curse.” simon is like “what do you mean?!” the old woman tells him to “resurrect him and destroy what remains, or nothing will remain of you”. she then disappears into thin air, implying she’s a ghost or something equally spooky. simon is like “destroy what remains... dracula’s remains?!”

the game starts properly in the graveyard and surrounding forest as simon heads in a fairly straight path towards the town of jova, where he meets a woman a few years younger than him named agnes. agnes’ parents were killed by dracula’s forces when he was resurrected back then, and she admires simon greatly for defeating the dark lord (shes also implied to be a descendant of grant danasty!). she decides to accompany him on his quest after hearing about his curse. he asks the head priest of the town if he knows about dracula’s remains, and the priest tells him that he heard of some of dracula’s followers placing some of dracula’s body parts in their strongholds to worship, and points him to the direction of the first stronghold and hands him a stake. he also warns them that bringing all of his remains together can resurrect the dark lord and it holds a remarkable corrupting power.

simon and agnes then become a character swapping duo (just like portrait of ruin hehehe). agnes is low on defense but can deal plenty of damage at a close range, and her signature weapon is the golden knife. she’s fast as well, whereas simon is more of a slow, defensive character who is best at keeping distance between himself and the enemy. agnes is smart, but impulsive and stubborn, and doesn’t like being told that she’s wrong. simon is a stoic but kind individual who tends to keep to himself. their personalities occasionally cause conflict between them during the adventure, but they eventually grow to become really good friends.

eventually they reach berkeley mansion, the first of the strongholds, and its aesthetic is very much “dark evil church”. there are the usual skeletons and bats and stuff, but some of the dracula followers are regular enemies as well. the first boss is a human who has dedicated his life to following dracula (specifically to contrast against the priest dude who gave simon the stake and directions) who uses magic attacks and stuff. beating him earns simon dracula’s rib, which functions suprisingly well as a shield (which becomes important later).

the adventure continues on like this, going from town to mansion to town, with simons curse becoming more and more hindering to him (from a story perspective not a gameplay one. simon wont become worse to play as because that would be lame as hell). they go to the other mansions, with the bosses being carmilla (guarding the nail of vlad, in a mansion thats very much a vampires lair), olrox (guarding the eyeball, in a massive dining hall themed mansion) death (guarding vlads ring in a Spooky Clockwork Skeleton Mansion with slogras and gaibons and all the usual death stuff), and in the final mansion... there is no boss. just as simon is about to grab the heart, agnes stops him.

Agnes: You told me you were going to destroy the remains, weren’t you?

Simon: Of... Of course, Agnes. Why do you ask?

Agnes: Why haven’t you?

Simon: ...

Agnes: We have almost all of them. You remember what the priest said, right? That bringing them together can resurrect Dracula.

Simon: Well... I haven’t exactly been truthful, Agnes. The old woman who sent me on this quest didn’t tell me just to destroy his remains...

Agnes: So you’ve been intending to resurrect the Dark Lord this whole time? For your own selfish gain?

Simon: This curse will kill me if I don’t.

Agnes: ...So it’s true, then. You’re willing to risk the lives of thousands just to save your own skin. Lives like my parents’... Lives like mine.

Simon: I...

Agnes: There’s no need to explain yourself, oh great hero, Simon Belmont. (Scoffs) If you care more for yourself than anyone else, strike me down now!

surprise! simon has to fight against his best friend! tbh i would be pissed at him too lmao. and it’s a tough fight, as agnes can deal a ton of damage and is hard to dodge. killing her like any other boss will give you the bad ending, where simon realizes she was right and lets himself succumb to the curse out of guilt for her death. the way to the good ending is to use dracula’s rib as a shield (i told you it would be important!) or dodge/survive her attacks until she tires out (the shield is the best method though), and realizes simon doesn’t want to hurt her. they have a touching emotional moment and simon assures her that he beat dracula before and can do it again, but he will need her help. agnes nods, and they head to the ruins of dracula’s old castle, which is totally empty. there’s no music, while the rest of the game has been filled with catchy tunes, here there’s only ambient noise.

they reach the throne room and place drac’s remains on a pedestal, where they begin to glow with dark energy. blood is dripping down the walls and stuff, and the count is returning to the mortal plane as thunder booms in the background. simon begins to doubt himself. if he loses now, the world will be plunged into darkness, and it will all be his fault. but... agnes has his back, despite everything. they fight dracula together, and though it’s tough with simon’s weakened body, they eventually prevail, as simon drives the stake into his heart, the curse finally lifted.

the game ends with agnes and simon returning to jova. agnes admits that she’s still upset with simon for lying to her, but she would be even more upset if he died slowly because of her. simon sighs, stating that there was no easy solution to the situation they were in, and asks for forgiveness for breaking her trust and risking so much for his own desires. agnes says maybe one day she will forgive him completely, and she still considers him a friend, but she needs some time to herself. simon nods, and they go their separate ways.

SO YEAH idk if this is even good but i hope u at least enjoyed reading it. maybe ill make designs for this version of simon, and for agnes too ofc :D

...yeah, not exactly the happiest ending, but i always found it kind of weird that simon was so willing to resurrect the count to save himself from the curse, so that’s the main conflict i decided to add to the story. its not the sort of conflict that can be easily resolved. theres no easy answer... agnes was right about simon risking other peoples lives being wrong, but she was also wrong to insist that he just give up and let the curse kill him instead. its Complicated idk... Castlevania II: Simon’s Trolley Problem

edit: actually i decided there would be two "true endings" after using the shield in the agnes fight. the one i described, and a second one where they decide against resurrecting dracula and simon lives out the short rest of his days with agnes until he dies of the curse. both endings are considered equally canon and valid

[ddrkirbyisq]

Aaaand we're back.  Well, really we were "back" a lot earlier than this, but I just hadn't gotten around to posting another update yet. Last we left off, I was really grumpy and having a hard time due to two separate things that were going on in my life, but we're all in the clear now, so that's good. Since then, let's see... These days I've been watching Nagi no Asukara, which a good friend recommended to me.  I'm currently around episode...18 I believe?  It's been quite enjoyable so far and I'm interested in seeing what comes out of it.  More on that later, perhaps. Been continuing to play games on our SNES classic too!  I made my way through Super Castlevania IV, which was...actually not terribly difficult, aside from a few places that gave me trouble.  Ultimately more impressive was the fact that I also made my way through Super Ghouls and Ghosts, which was quite difficult, especially in a few key places (like beating level 7 on the second loop with the bracelet, argh!!!).  Thank goodness for essentially unlimited continues.  But now I can check that one off my bucket list.  The remaining "hard" (to some extent) games that I still need to go through include Contra 3 -- which I'm sure will also be brutal --, F-Zero, Super Punch-Out, and the two Star Fox games.  Haven't decided what to do with Super Metroid yet, but I'm sure I'll have fun running that in some way as well (RBO run?).  In the meantime I've been going through Secret of Mana with my housemate which has been fun as well. Oh, and, I finished both Cuphead and VA-11 HALL-A!  Both were quite enjoyable -- I ended up getting 100% on Cuphead...don't think I'll go for >100% with all the expert-level stuff, but I will go through and at least play through the bonus content included with VA-11 HALL-A.  Cuphead was great fun, very whimsical and beautiful, very old-school, as expected.  The difficulty was pretty good I think; there was enough challenge there, without anything seeming tedious or frustrating (except for trying to beat Mr. Dice before I realized that you have control over the dice roll, lol!).  VA-11 HALL-A's gameplay was...interesting, I guess, but actually was pretty fun, and the characters were actually quite adorable in their portrayal in some regards.  So that was cool. Rhythm Quest has been rolling along slowly -- I finished up level 1-4, and also reconstructed the project file for level 1-1's music, which I lost due to what I can only assume was a really random freak FL studio accident of some sort.  I also went through all of the music I made so far and got rid of any phase randomness effects that I had on because they sound terrible on phone speakers (where the L and R speakers are basically right next to each other).  Whoops.  I improved the design of the doublehit enemies a little bit as well, though I may still need to come up with a different visual concept for those that is a little more intuitive. Music work has been slow recently, as it has been for a while, but my Patreon is at least pushing me to keep on trying to make things at a steady rate.  Besides the level 1-4 music for Rhythm Quest, I started another collab with A-zu-ra, which should be fun to work through. Ludum Dare is next weekend!  Theme voting has already started and this week is the week for us to prepare ourselves and make sure we are stocked up on groceries as well as ready in terms of our planning and ideas.  We will have a writer with us this time!  So we'll be working our game design around that...exciting!  This week is supposed to be a little busy at work unfortunately but I'm planning to take a half day or WFH on friday so we can be all set to go on Friday. I kind of took a break from Xmas stuff but I'm starting to pick it up again -- I only have 2 (?) more letters to do and I managed to do an inventory of my gift stash; it turns out that I actually don't have much more shopping to do at all, which is great.  I have some handmade stuff that I need to work on though, so I will be trying to get around to that.  In other news, I bought myself some stuff off of my own wishlist -- put in a big order for a bunch of pen stuff that I wanted, and ordered myself a new microphone too, yay! Anyhow, despite a stumble here and there Thanksgiving has actually been very relaxing and nice for me and I'm hoping that that energy will continue from here on out too....though that is probably a futile wish as best because we all know that Ludum Dare will basically be a tornado.  Ah well, but it should be a great experience again, as it always is.