Search for the Monolith
Playing as a detective gives the player the choice and reason to investigate all sorts of items and objects all over the map, talk to NPCs and solve puzzles in order to complete the main objective.
There are occasional fight scenes but the game's main emphasis is on exploration and detective work. I have got plans of turning fight scenes into interrogations, using forensic psychology as a weapon.
In contemporary role-playing games, players are able to alter their playable character's appearance, name and even skills. In Search for the Monolith, I sticked to the more traditional. On the other hand, the players are given a companion, a detective dog, they can name and refer to throughout the story.
My very first attempt at RPG videogame writing and designing in 2019 via RPG Maker Ace. Search for the Monolith takes the player to a human colony called Rome, located in the Horsehead Nebula where we watch the events unfold from the perspective of Detective John Gosfrid, a promising, local police officer who is given the task to locate a mysterious alien device, the Monolith.
The History of Rome:
Originally founded by Italian astronaut, Vincenzo Rome, the colony was quickly overran by colonists, looking for a life far from Earth's reach. The planet consists mostly of water and only one continent along with countless islands.
When Earth demanded political reforms, the colonist rebelled and their civil war eventually led to the independence of the colony. Although Rome is the largest human colony in this universe, it remains self-reliant and holds good econimic relationship with the homeworld.
Many of the colonists, however, do not support immigrants coming from Earth's territory and believe the galaxy was meant to be studied and explored, not consumed. This philosophy has slowly spread around colonies and their believers are now called Scepticists.
The idea for Search for the Monolith came from my own sci-fi world I have created for other stories and creative works in the past. Creating an environment in this medium, however, quickly became my favourite approach to fiction writing due to its unique challenges and opportunities.
inspiration came from popular games such as the Mass Effect Trilogy, Undertale, and a Hungarian indie-game, called Amnézia.
Though a demo version has been completed, it is not currently available to download for free but this may change in the future.
2nd April 2019