Libregamewiki - User contributions [en]

Hero of Allacrost

2007-12-12T05:39:04Z

Roots: New release of Allacrost merited page update

[[Image:Screenshot-Hero_of_Allacrost-1.jpg|thumb|Screenshot of Hero of Allacrost v.0.2.0
{|
|-
|Genre: [[Role-playing game|RPG]]
|-
|Developer(s): ([[Hero of Allacrost Contributers]]): [[Tyler Olsen]], [[Philip Vorsilak]], [[Andy Gardner]], [[Jacob Rudolph]], [[Daniel Steuernol]], [[Richard Kettering]], [[Brett Steele]], [[Ryan Reilly]]
|-
|Release: 0.2.1
|-
|}]]

'''Hero of Allacrost''' is a 2d single-player [[Role-playing game|RPG game]] licensed under the [[GNU General Public License|GPL]] and was founded by [[Tyler Olsen]] in June 2004.<ref>[http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~olsen/index.html Tyler Olsen's homepage] - Contains information on the start of the Allacrost project.</ref><ref>[http://www.allacrost.org/?q=node/14 Hero of Allacrost FAQ] - Has a question on the FAQ</ref> Hero of Allacrost is frequently abbreviated as "HoA" or "Allacrost". The team's official description of the game is as follows:

<blockquote>''Hero of Allacrost is a single player 2D role-playing game that shares similar appearance and gameplay with classic console RPGs. In Hero of Allacrost, the player will explore rich environments, solve challenging dungeon puzzles, and fight strategic battles in an active-time based system. The game is free open-source software and is available across several platforms including Windows, OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD.''</blockquote>

The latest version is Demo 0.2.1, released on December 10, 2007.<ref>[http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115378 Sourceforge.net's download page for the Allacrost project]</ref>

In each release then Allacrost will open up a new chapter of the story, allowing a very limited amount of updates, unless the story is extended. They only release a new section when it is completley finished, with hopefully no bugs.<ref>[http://www.allacrost.org/?q=node/13 Allacrost FAQ]</ref>

==Design==

Allacrost's design is inspired from 2D console role-playing games that were common in the 1990s. The two games that Allacrost draws most of its inspiration from are Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. The main goal of Allacrost's design is to emulate the look and feel of this generation of gaming while still providing an ample amount of originality. The official, primary, goals for Allacrost are listed below. <ref>[http://allacrost.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Statement_of_Purpose Allacrost's Statement of Purpose]</ref>

<blockquote>
# Create a role-playing game, free to the public, which may be enjoyed by as many people as possible. It will be playable on a wide range of computers from 1990 era PCs to today's, and on virtually any user operating system from Linux, to Windows, to Mac OSX. This game will also support multiple languages so that players from the world over may play it.
# Design the game such that the major focus is on gameplay and story, not advanced 3D graphics and physical simulations.
# As much as possible, remove the tedious, meaningless, and micromanaging aspects of many historical and modern RPGs.
# Require a high level of strategic thinking and planning from the player, and less mindless "button mashing" found in many RPGs.
# Make the source code and documentation to our game engine freely available under the GNU Public License, so that other game developers may absorb what we have learned and use our code to expedite the production of their own games.
</blockquote>

==Features==

Most of the current and planned features address three of the game's primary goals (focus on story and game-play, eliminate micromanagement, require strategy). Some of the more notable features of the game include the following.

'''Multiple Point Attack System''' or MAPS is one of the key features of the battle system. MAPS defines multiple targets on enemy combatants that the player may select to attack (head, arms, etc). Each attack point has certain resistances and weaknesses, and furthermore a successful hit on certain attack points may induce a status effect such as decreased agility or temporary blindness. The major purpose of MAPS is to allow players (and the enemy AI) to develop multiple strategies for subduing their opponents.

'''Skills''' are different from most common RPG systems. Skills in Allacrost are divided into attack, defense, and support categories and there is no generic "Fight" option to select, an option that is found in many other RPGs. Each skill consumes a certain amount of skill points (SP), depending on how advanced the skill is. Some skills are innate (require no SP to use), but are much less powerful. Furthermore, it will not be a simple matter to regenerate SP between battles in Allacrost, which requires the player to not abuse high-level skills for they may lose the next battle due to insufficient amounts of SP.

'''Elemental and Status Effects''' have multiple severity ratings that determine how potent a certain effect is (poison, strength boost, etc.). This is unlike most other RPGs that have only a single severity level for their status afflictions.

'''Modular Releases''' is not exactly a feature of the game. The team proposes to release the game in modules, one at a time, rather than waiting until the entire game is finished to make a release. Once a new module is released, players can download it and install it, which will make more content available for the player to continue the game from where they last saved.

==Story==

Being a RPG, the Allacrost Team places a great deal of emphasis on providing a compelling story for the game. The story is actually written in novel format, and the story implemented in the game is based off this on-going novel. Being that Allacrost originally started as a short story and not a game, the team decided to continue the novel-based game approach. The story that will be present in the game will not be exactly the same as it is presented in the novel.

===Synopsis===

The main protagonist is Claudius Toratine, a young knight of the kingdom of Harrvah. As a young child, Claudius was adopted by the Taolin family after the village he had lived in was raided by the Muabi, a tribe of natives, and his family murdered. The tale begins with Claudius on a mission with several knights-in-arms to unblock the water supply leading to the capital. After doing so, they return to the capital to find it ablaze with evil demons overwhelming the castle town's defenses. Claudius and the returning party of knights rush to the battle and by a chance of fate, Claudius narrowly ends up saving the life of his king from a surprise attack. The demons eventually withdraw, leaving the town half destroyed with dead bodies filling every street. A few days later the king addresses Claudius personally, informing him of an ancient legend which tells of a hero who will appear when their world is in peril. The king requests for Claudius to alone seek out this hero of legend to give their people hope. After an emotional farewell with his adopted family and his dear sister Laila, Claudius departs on his new assignment.

===Origins===

Allacrost began not as a game, but as a short story which Tyler wrote in early June, 2004. Upon sharing it online on the AnimeSuki forums and receiving much unexpected praise, Tyler mentioned the possibility of using the story as a basis for an open source role playing game. A small handful of interested parties contacted Tyler stating that they wished to work on the game he proposed. The initial Allacrost team consisted of 3 programmers, one graphics artist, and one musician, and the project's domain was registered on June 10th, 2004. This date is cited as the project's birth date. The deepest roots of Allacrost extend even further back to 1996 when Tyler wrote some ideas down in a journal for a RPG that he hoped to one day develop. The fundamental base for the game's story as well as some of the core features available in the game come from this journal source.

=== First Year ===

The initial team of five originally focused on deciding upon the feature set for the game. The team's project registration was approved by Sourceforge on July 26th, 2004. By the end of summer 2004, a minimal amount of progress had been made with the code as the team discovered that their lack of experience in game development had greatly hindered the rate of development that they hoped to achieve. On the programming team, much of the first year of Allacrost was spent discovering how to design a suitable engine for the game logic to run upon. The original team members also focused on choosing a defining style for the game's artwork, which was largely resolved by a talented artist, Brett Steel (Safir-Kreuz)), who joined the team in Fall 2004. Allacrost quickly had a wide selection of quality music thanks mostly to the arrival of Ryan Reiley (Rain). The team released the first screenshots for Allacrost on February 1st, 2005<ref>[http://www.allacrost.org/?q=node/21 Allacrost Screenshots]</ref>, which detailed a title screen and a simple map populated with sprites.

===Second Year===

Development on Allacrost was somewhat hindered due to poor choices in the software libraries that the engine was built upon. Much of the programming work done during this period involved researching alternative libraries and replacing the ones that did not meet the project's needs. Engine development was the major focus for the programming team during this period. The much smaller artwork team worked hard to produce enough sprites and map artwork in order for the team to be able to release their first demo, while the sound and music team continued to build a comprehensive library of music for the game's soundtrack. One of the difficulties the team faced during this period was the team itself; the team had grown to around 15-20 individuals by this time, and managing the team became a difficult and time-consuming task.

===Third Year===

The third year of Allacrost saw its first release. A tech demo (version 0.1.0) was made available on October 2nd, 2006. <ref>[http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115378 Allacrost's Sourceforge.net Files]</ref>, and a second set of screenshots from this demo were posted shortly before the release on August 31st, 2006. The tech demo featured a single map, a small number of NPCs, random battle encounters, a basic but functional battle system, and a simple party menu interface. The demo was immediately available for Windows, OS X, and Linux (by source distribution), but these were quickly followed by a FreeBSD port and an unofficial Debian package. After achieving this milestone, the team set their next goal on expanding the content and features of the demo. Progress toward this goal continued throughout the rest of Allacrost's third year, and just after the project's anniversary date, on June 11th 2007 the team released a second tech demo (version 0.2.0). This release featured two maps, many more NPCs, visible enemy encounters on maps, a simple shopping interface, and many more updates.

===Current Status===

The Allacrost team, now in the beginning of their fourth year, has recently released their third demo, v0.2.1, which was labeled as a small improvement to their previous demo with some new features added.

==Contributors==

Allacrost has a long list of contributors throughout its history.<ref>[http://allacrost.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/People_Involved People Involved with Allacrost Development]</ref> The people whom have made the most significant amount of contributions include:

===Programming team===

*[[Tyler Olsen]] (Roots)
*[[Philip Vorsilak]] (gorzuate)
*[[Andy Gardner]] (Chopper Dave)
*[[Jacob Rudolph]] (rujasu)
*[[Daniel Steuernol]] (steu)
*[[Andy Gardner]]
===Artwork team===

*[[Richard Kettering]] (Jetryl)
*[[Brett Steele]] (Safir-Kreuz)

===Composition team===

*[[Ryan Reilly]] (Rain)

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://allacrost.org/ Hero of Allacrost homepage].

[[Category:Games]][[Category:Role-playing games]][[Category:GPL games]]

Hero of Allacrost

2007-11-13T16:55:33Z

Roots: Added short section on the story, moved history section towards the end of the page (people probably don't care about the project's history too much, so I put the other sections first)

[[Image:Screenshot-Hero_of_Allacrost-1.jpg|thumb|Screenshot of Hero of Allacrost v.0.2.0]]'''Hero of Allacrost''' is a 2d single-player [[Role-playing game|RPG game]] licensed under the [[GNU General Public License|GPL]] and was founded by [[Tyler Olsen]] in June 2004.<ref>[http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~olsen/index.html Tyler Olsen's homepage] - Contains information on the start of the Allacrost project</ref> Hero of Allacrost is frequently abbreviated as "HoA" or "Allacrost". The team's official description of Hero of Allacrost is as follows:

<blockquote>''Hero of Allacrost is a single player 2D role-playing game that shares similar appearance and gameplay with classical console RPGs. In Hero of Allacrost, the player will explore rich environments, solve challenging dungeon puzzles, and fight strategic battles in an active-time based system. The game is free open-source software and is available across several platforms including Windows, OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD.''</blockquote>

The latest release is Demo 0.2.0, made available on June 11, 2007.<ref>[http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115378 Sourceforge.net's download page for the Allacrost project]</ref>

==Design==

Allcrost's design is inspired from 2D console role-playing games that were common throughout the 1990s. The two games that Allacrost draws most of its inspiration from are Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. The main goal of Allacrost's design is to emulate the look and feel of this generation of gaming while still providing an ample amount of originality. The offical primary goals for Allacrost are listed below <ref>[http://allacrost.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Statement_of_Purpose Allacrost's Statement of Purpose]</ref>.

<blockquote>
# Create a role-playing game, free to the public, which may be enjoyed by as many people as possible. It will be playable on a wide range of computers from 1990 era PCs to today's, and on virtually any user operating system from Linux, to Windows, to Mac OSX. This game will also support multiple languages so that players from the world over may play it.
# Design the game such that the major focus is on gameplay and story, not advanced 3D graphics and physical simulations.
# As much as possible, remove the tedious, meaningless, and micromanaging aspects of many historical and modern RPGs.
# Require a high level of strategic thinking and planning from the player, and less mindless "button mashing" found in many RPGs.
# Make the source code and documentation to our game engine freely available under the GNU Public License, so that other game developers may absorb what we have learned and use our code to expedite the production of their own games.
</blockquote>

==Features==

Many of the features that are currently available or plan to be made available largely address three of the game's primary goals (focus on story and gameplay, eliminate micromanagement, require strategy). Some of the more notable features of the game include the following.

'''Multiple Point Attack System''' or MAPS is one of the key features of the battle system. MAPS defines multiple targets on enemy combatants that the player may select to attack (head, arms, etc). Each attack point has certain resistances and weaknesses, and furthermore a successful hit on certain attack points may induce a status effect such as decreased agility or temporary blindness. The major purpose of MAPS is to allow players (and the enemy AI) to develop multiple strategies for subduing their opponents.

'''Skills''' are different from most common RPG systems. Skills in Allacrost are divided into attack, defense, and support categories and there is no generic "Fight" option to select that is found in many other RPGs. Each skill consumes a certain amount of skill points (SP), depending on how advanced the skill is. Some skills are innate (require no SP to use), but are much less powerful. Furthermore, it will not be a simple matter to regenerate SP between battles in Allacrost, which requires the player to not abuse high-level skills for they may lose the next battle due to insufficient amounts of SP.

'''Elemental and Status Effects''' have multiple severity ratings that determine how potent a certain effect is (poison, strength boost, etc.). This is unlike most other RPGs that have only a single severity level for their status afflictions.

'''Modular Releases''' is not exactly a feature of the game. The team proposes to release the game in modules, one at a time, rather than waiting until the entire game is finished to make a release. Once a new module is released, players can download it and install it, which will make more content available for the player to continue the game from where they last saved.

==Story==

Being a RPG, the Allacrost Team places a great deal of emphasis on providing a compelling story for the game. The story is actually written in novel format, and the story implemented in the game is based off this on-going novel. Being that Allacrost originally started as a short story and not a game, the team decided to continue the novel-based game approach. The story that will be present in the game will not be exactly the same as it is presented in the novel.

===Synopsis===

The main protagonist is Claudius Toratine, a young knight of the kingdom of Harrvah. As a young child, Claudius was adopted by the Taolin family after the village he had lived in was raided by the Muabi, a tribe of natives, and his family murdered. The tale begins with Claudius on a mission with several knights-in-arms to unblock the water supply leading to the capital. After doing so, they return to the capital to find it ablaze with evil demons overwhelming the castle town's defenses. Claudius and the returning party of knights rush to the battle and by a chance of fate, Claudius narrowly ends up saving the life of his king from a surprise attack. The demons eventually withdraw, leaving the town half destroyed with dead bodies filling every street. A few days later the king addresses Claudius personally, informing him of an ancient legend which tells of a hero who will appear when their world is in peril. The king requests for Claudius to alone seek out this hero of legend to give their people hope. After an emotional farewell with his adopted family and his dear sister Laila, Claudius departs on his new assignment.

==History==

===Origins===

Allacrost began not as a game, but as a short story which Tyler wrote in early June, 2004. Upon sharing it online on the AnimeSuki forums and receiving much unexpected praise, Tyler mentioned the possibility of using the story as a basis for an open source role playing game. A small handful of interested parties contacted Tyler stating that they wished to work on the game he proposed. The initial Allacrost team consisted of 3 programmers, one graphics artist, and one musician, and the project's domain was registered on June 10th, 2004. This date is cited as the project's birth date. The deepest roots of Allacrost extend even further back to 1996 when Tyler wrote some ideas down in a journal for a RPG that he hoped to one day develop. The fundamental base for the game's story as well as some of the core features available in the game come from this journal source.

=== First Year ===

The initial team of five originally focused on deciding upon the feature set for the game. The team's project registration was approved by Sourceforge on July 26th, 2004. By the end of summer 2004, a minimal amount of progress had been made with the code as the team discovered that their lack of experience in game development had greatly hindered the rate of development that they hoped to achieve. On the programming team, much of the first year of Allacrost was spent discovering how to design a suitable engine for the game logic to run upon. The original team members also focused on choosing a defining style for the game's artwork, which was largely resolved by a talented artist, Brett Steel (Safir-Kreuz)), who joined the team in Fall 2004. Allacrost quickly had a wide selection of quality music thanks mostly to the arrival of Ryan Reiley (Rain). The team released the first screenshots for Allacrost on February 1st, 2005<ref>[http://www.allacrost.org/?q=node/21 Allacrost Screenshots]</ref>, which detailed a title screen and a simple map populated with sprites.

===Second Year===

Development on Allacrost was somewhat hindered due to poor choices in the software libraries that the engine was built upon. Much of the programming work done during this period involved researching alternative libraries and replacing the ones that did not meet the project's needs. Engine development was the major focus for the programming team during this period. The much smaller artwork team worked hard to produce enough sprites and map artwork in order for the team to be able to release their first demo, while the sound and music team continued to build a comprehensive library of music for the game's soundtrack. One of the difficulties the team faced during this period was the team itself; the team had grown to around 15-20 individuals by this time, and managing the team became a difficult and time-consuming task.

===Third Year===

The third year of Allacrost saw its first release. A tech demo (version 0.1.0) was made available on October 2nd, 2006. <ref>[http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115378 Allacrost's Sourceforge.net Files]</ref>, and a second set of screenshots from this demo were posted shortly before the release on August 31st, 2006. The tech demo featured a single map, a small number of NPCs, random battle encounters, a basic but functional battle system, and a simple party menu interface. The demo was immediately available for Windows, OS X, and Linux (by source distribution), but these were quickly followed by a FreeBSD port and an unofficial Debian package. After achieving this milestone, the team set their next goal on expanding the content and features of the demo. Progress toward this goal continued throughout the rest of Allacrost's third year, and just after the project's anniversary date, on June 11th 2007 the team released a second tech demo (version 0.2.0). This release featured two maps, many more NPCs, visible enemy encounters on maps, a simple shopping interface, and many more updates.

===Current Status===

The Allacrost team, now in the beginning of their fourth year, is currently developing a third release that is an improvement to their second demo. The features planned for this next release have not been identified, but it has been stated that the release will not be as significant of a jump as the 0.1.0 to 0.2.0 demo.

==Contributors==

Allacrost has a long list of contributors throughout its history <ref>[http://allacrost.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/People_Involved People Involved with Allacrost Development]</ref>. The people whom have made the most significant amount of contributions include:

===Programming team===

*[[Tyler Olsen]] (Roots)
*[[Philip Vorsilak]] (gorzuate)
*[[Andy Gardner]] (Chopper Dave)
*[[Jacob Rudolph]] (rujasu)
*[[Daniel Steuernol]] (steu)

===Artwork team===

*[[Richard Kettering]] (Jetryl)
*[[Brett Steele]] (Safir-Kreuz)

===Composition team===

*[[Ryan Reilly]] (Rain)

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://allacrost.org/ Hero of Allacrost homepage].

[[Category:Games]][[Category:Role-playing games]][[Category:GPL games]]

Talk:Hero of Allacrost

2007-11-01T16:42:27Z

Roots: New page: == Additions == After discovering this wiki and the Allacrost entry, I (Tyler Olsen, aka Roots) added a lot of additional information here. I tried to cite references where I could, but a...

== Additions ==

After discovering this wiki and the Allacrost entry, I (Tyler Olsen, aka Roots) added a lot of additional information here. I tried to cite references where I could, but a lot of the information (particularly the project's history) comes from my memory, which is rather difficult to provide a link to ;). I was also thinking of providing a bulleted timeline of major events in addition to or in place of the text-heavy history section, but I was unsure if this would be appropriate. I was also considering adding a section for the game's story (since the story is a major focus for this particular game), perhaps along with artwork for a couple of protagonist characters.

--[[User:Roots|Roots]] 17:42, 1 November 2007 (CET)

Hero of Allacrost

2007-11-01T16:36:26Z

Roots: Finished all the additions to this page that I had planned to add for now (History, Contributors)

[[Image:Screenshot-Hero_of_Allacrost-1.jpg|thumb|Screenshot of Hero of Allacrost v.0.2.0]]'''Hero of Allacrost''' is a 2d single-player [[Role-playing game|RPG game]] licensed under the [[GNU General Public License|GPL]] and was founded by [[Tyler Olsen]] in June 2004.<ref>[http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~olsen/index.html Tyler Olsen's homepage] - Contains information on the start of the Allacrost project</ref> Hero of Allacrost is frequently abbreviated as "HoA" or "Allacrost". The team's official description of Hero of Allacrost is as follows:

<blockquote>''Hero of Allacrost is a single player 2D role-playing game that shares similar appearance and gameplay with classical console RPGs. In Hero of Allacrost, the player will explore rich environments, solve challenging dungeon puzzles, and fight strategic battles in an active-time based system. The game is free open-source software and is available across several platforms including Windows, OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD.''</blockquote>

The latest release is Demo 0.2.0, made available on June 11, 2007.<ref>[http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115378 Sourceforge.net's download page for the Allacrost project]</ref>

==History==

===Origins===

Allacrost began not as a game, but as a short story which Tyler wrote in early June, 2004. Upon sharing it online on the AnimeSuki forums and receiving much unexpected praise, Tyler mentioned the possibility of using the story as a basis for an open source role playing game. A small handful of interested parties contacted Tyler stating that they wished to work on the game he proposed. The initial Allacrost team consisted of 3 programmers, one graphics artist, and one musician, and the project's domain was registered on June 10th, 2004. This date is cited as the project's birth date. The deepest roots of Allacrost extend even further back to 1996 when Tyler wrote some ideas down in a journal for a RPG that he hoped to one day develop. The fundamental base for the game's story as well as some of the core features available in the game come from this journal source.

=== First Year ===

The initial team of five originally focused on deciding upon the feature set for the game. The team's project registration was approved by Sourceforge on July 26th, 2004. By the end of summer 2004, a minimal amount of progress had been made with the code as the team discovered that their lack of experience in game development had greatly hindered the rate of development that they hoped to achieve. On the programming team, much of the first year of Allacrost was spent discovering how to design a suitable engine for the game logic to run upon. The original team members also focused on choosing a defining style for the game's artwork, which was largely resolved by a talented artist, Brett Steel (Safir-Kreuz)), who joined the team in Fall 2004. Allacrost quickly had a wide selection of quality music thanks mostly to the arrival of Ryan Reiley (Rain). The team released the first screenshots for Allacrost on February 1st, 2005<ref>[http://www.allacrost.org/?q=node/21 Allacrost Screenshots]</ref>, which detailed a title screen and a simple map populated with sprites.

===Second Year===

Development on Allacrost was somewhat hindered due to poor choices in the software libraries that the engine was built upon. Much of the programming work done during this period involved researching alternative libraries and replacing the ones that did not meet the project's needs. Engine development was the major focus for the programming team during this period. The much smaller artwork team worked hard to produce enough sprites and map artwork in order for the team to be able to release their first demo, while the sound and music team continued to build a comprehensive library of music for the game's soundtrack. One of the difficulties the team faced during this period was the team itself; the team had grown to around 15-20 individuals by this time, and managing the team became a difficult and time-consuming task.

===Third Year===

The third year of Allacrost saw its first release. A tech demo (version 0.1.0) was made available on October 2nd, 2006. <ref>[http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115378 Allacrost's Sourceforge.net Files]</ref>, and a second set of screenshots from this demo were posted shortly before the release on August 31st, 2006. The tech demo featured a single map, a small number of NPCs, random battle encounters, a basic but functional battle system, and a simple party menu interface. The demo was immediately available for Windows, OS X, and Linux (by source distribution), but these were quickly followed by a FreeBSD port and an unofficial Debian package. After achieving this milestone, the team set their next goal on expanding the content and features of the demo. Progress toward this goal continued throughout the rest of Allacrost's third year, and just after the project's anniversary date, on June 11th 2007 the team released a second tech demo (version 0.2.0). This release featured two maps, many more NPCs, visible enemy encounters on maps, a simple shopping interface, and many more updates.

===Current Status===

The Allacrost team, now in the beginning of their fourth year, is currently developing a third release that is an improvement to their second demo. The features planned for this next release have not been identified, but it has been stated that the release will not be as significant of a jump as the 0.1.0 to 0.2.0 demo.

==Design==

Allcrost's design is inspired from 2D console role-playing games that were common throughout the 1990s. The two games that Allacrost draws most of its inspiration from are Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. The main goal of Allacrost's design is to emulate the look and feel of this generation of gaming while still providing an ample amount of originality. The offical primary goals for Allacrost are listed below <ref>[http://allacrost.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Statement_of_Purpose Allacrost's Statement of Purpose]</ref>.

<blockquote>
# Create a role-playing game, free to the public, which may be enjoyed by as many people as possible. It will be playable on a wide range of computers from 1990 era PCs to today's, and on virtually any user operating system from Linux, to Windows, to Mac OSX. This game will also support multiple languages so that players from the world over may play it.
# Design the game such that the major focus is on gameplay and story, not advanced 3D graphics and physical simulations.
# As much as possible, remove the tedious, meaningless, and micromanaging aspects of many historical and modern RPGs.
# Require a high level of strategic thinking and planning from the player, and less mindless "button mashing" found in many RPGs.
# Make the source code and documentation to our game engine freely available under the GNU Public License, so that other game developers may absorb what we have learned and use our code to expedite the production of their own games.
</blockquote>

==Features==

Many of the features that are currently available or plan to be made available largely address three of the game's primary goals (focus on story and gameplay, eliminate micromanagement, require strategy). Some of the more notable features of the game include the following.

'''Multiple Point Attack System''' or MAPS is one of the key features of the battle system. MAPS defines multiple targets on enemy combatants that the player may select to attack (head, arms, etc). Each attack point has certain resistances and weaknesses, and furthermore a successful hit on certain attack points may induce a status effect such as decreased agility or temporary blindness. The major purpose of MAPS is to allow players (and the enemy AI) to develop multiple strategies for subduing their opponents.

'''Skills''' are different from most common RPG systems. Skills in Allacrost are divided into attack, defense, and support categories and there is no generic "Fight" option to select that is found in many other RPGs. Each skill consumes a certain amount of skill points (SP), depending on how advanced the skill is. Some skills are innate (require no SP to use), but are much less powerful. Furthermore, it will not be a simple matter to regenerate SP between battles in Allacrost, which requires the player to not abuse high-level skills for they may lose the next battle due to insufficient amounts of SP.

'''Elemental and Status Effects''' have multiple severity ratings that determine how potent a certain effect is (poison, strength boost, etc.). This is unlike most other RPGs that have only a single severity level for their status afflictions.

'''Modular Releases''' is not exactly a feature of the game. The team proposes to release the game in modules, one at a time, rather than waiting until the entire game is finished to make a release. Once a new module is released, players can download it and install it, which will make more content available for the player to continue the game from where they last saved.

==Contributors==

Allacrost has a long list of contributors throughout its history <ref>[http://allacrost.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/People_Involved People Involved with Allacrost Development]</ref>. The people whom have made the most significant amount of contributions include:

===Programming team===

*[[Tyler Olsen]] (Roots)
*Philip Vorsilak (gorzuate)
*Andy Gardner (Chopper Dave)
*Jacob Rudolph (rujasu)
*Daniel Steuernol (steu)

===Artwork team===

*[[Richard Kettering]] (Jetryl)
*Brett Steele (Safir-Kreuz)

===Composition team===

*Ryan Reilly (Rain)

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://allacrost.org/ Hero of Allacrost homepage].

[[Category:Games]][[Category:Role-playing games]][[Category:GPL games]]

Hero of Allacrost

2007-10-31T20:43:49Z

Roots: /* Features */

Hero of Allacrost

2007-10-31T20:04:27Z

Roots: /* Design */

Hero of Allacrost

2007-10-22T18:31:38Z

Roots: Expanded upon article summary and added a history,d esign, and features section. Will fill out these sections more completely later