Exil/Origins

***Exil: Origins*** is a pixelated role-playing game with 2D platforming elements in the *Exil* series.

## Vertical slice

The player starts the game by falling onto cliffs from a stronghold above. They go one screen to the right, to see a hostile enemy in the center. They could initiate an RPG battle with them, but the cliffs above enable the player to jump up above the enemy. They can jump off ledges a fixed distance to the side, by holding the jump button as they leave platforms. There, they roll a boulder that falls onto the enemy's head, stunning them. Since the player interacted with the enemy, a prompt appears, and the player initiates a battle. No battle transition takes place, the battlers move in front of the screen, while the background remains.

Because the enemy was stunned in the overworld, they receive a large time penalty at the start. The player has a few abilities to select from in their palette. Any physical attack they select will trigger the enemy's Quick ability Guard, which is able to consume the cooldown of one of their other abilities to be enabled as long as they have abilities left, to drastically decrease the damage they take.

## New tidbits

### Item usage

* Either:

1. All items have a secret monetary cost, that is *not* detracted immediately.
	* Instead, they are added as a **debt sum**, that can be paid off later.
	* This enables infinite usage of any item in battle (cooldowns and time costs aside), but the player has to pay for it eventually.
2. The player as an "item usage resource" in every battle.
	* In *Bloodborne*, this is the 20 Quicksilver Bullets that can be used on a variety of items.
	* Using Elixirs, for example, may consume 10 or even 20 Quicksilver.

## Setting

The player controls **Sven**, one of many exiled homosexuals to an unnamed island in the turmoil of a political war, by the zealots rising in power. Recruitable party members may have strong alliances to the Houses of their homeland, that cause conflict between them. Sven is able to enter a romantic relationship with any 1 of them.

## 2D platforming

The player character runs and jumps onto platforms in 2D. Enemies walk around the space, and deal *direct* damage to the team HP. Only the player is able to initiate battle transitions with the enemy; the way in which they do so then affects the battle itself. If they are able to lure the opponent into traps, they would start with a disadvantage, for example in initial time points. This allows for puzzles in the environment on how to best disadvantage the opponent.

### Puzzle-based movement

The player does not have extremely fast and fluid movement, so not to distract from the core gameplay. The player moves with a fixed speed, and cannot jump in any degree; instead, they hold and release the  button to jump directly upwards, but if they run towards a ledge with  held, they will instead jump off from it to the side. The player can also tap  to move to the next "square" regardless of distance.

Most enemies cannot move. If the player enters the "square" in front of where they are facing, they will initiate an attack that deals direct damage to the party. The player can respond with a timed block to initiate battle, with a time penalty to the enemy.

### Overworld Abilities

The player gradually unlock abilities only usable in the overworld, both to help them navigate and overcome obstacles, and also to displace and disadvantage the opponent. One such example is flash; having a very long and predictable windup, a flash of light is created in a very short distance in front of the player. An enemy that is affected will be launched more easily in the overworld, and if the status is active when the battle starts, enemies will be inflicted with blind.

One implementation is overworld combos. The battle will start automatically after a short period of time after the first ability's impact; the player is however able to chain other abilities in succession, in order to further disable and displace the enemy, extending the time. This could be changed in that all of the debuffs stack only for a limited time, so battles are still initiated manually, while keeping all the benefits of combos.

All overworld characters have the same abilities. Cooldown of overworld abilities is distributed onto all abilities as the battle starts.

Preferable if overworld abilities are disjointed, non-contact **devices** that the player places down. If the player were able to use overworld abilities to engage with enemies in melee battle, it would severely distract from the actual combat system of the game.

#### Devices

* Attractor
	+ Places an object on a stand that points forwards. A tractor beam is formed in a line in front of the device, pulling all affected entities a set size towards it. Will wait until an entity enters its FoV before activating, if none are present.
* Fulton Mine
	+ Places an object on the ground. If an entity enters its FoV, it will attach a balloon to them, which will lift them upwards a set distance.

### Checkpoints & Shortcuts

The game autosaves frequently. Upon death, they simply return to the currently active **checkpoint**. Level design revolves around these checkpoints, as there are much fewer checkpoints than there are rooms, since the player often unlock **shortcuts** that allow them to access a previous checkpoint. These shortcuts are displayed with a different color than their surrounding, usually white and lightblue, with fluttering wings around them. This effect is only visible while the shortcut is active.

## RPG combat

Upon striking an enemy in the overworld, the character sprites freeze and move into place, and the battle itself takes place overlayed on top. If characters transform, they do so while moving. When the battle ends, if the player team wins, sprites again freeze and move into their previous position, reverting back to their normal form if applicable.

Battles are multi-turn-based; characters can act multiple times in a row if their abilities consume low enough time points. Each character have a unique list of abilities, that can each be equipped to one of the fixed amount of slots. A few characters have more abilities than slots.

### Quick

Abilities are able to *respond* to specific changes in the game state, either before or after. Abilities used in this manner still consume time points.

### Cooldown Consumption

Some abilities can **consume** the cooldowns of other abilities to be used even they normally couldn't. Many abilities with this capability are Quicks, but some are not. Some abilities start the battle on-cooldown for this very reason.

### Variants & Items

Some abilities take up only 1 slot, but contain different **variants** of the same ability. They all share 1 cooldown, however. **Items** are handled in this matter; 1 slot may consist of only status recovery items, for example. These are often Quick, responding immediately as the player is poisoned, for example.

### WEAK & Stagger

All abilities have **flavor** properties that normally do not matter. Striking an enemy with an ability that they are **WEAK** to however, causes the **Stagger Meter** to temporarily appear. While it is present, any hit inflicted onto that enemy will cause it to deplete. If it does so before disappearing (the timer can be reset with subsequent WEAK hits), the enemy will be **Staggered**, becoming unable to take action for a period of time, along with some optional temporary changes unique to the instance.

In another setting, a boss being susceptible only to very specific types of moves only would be a good incentivizer to go out of their way to find weapons with that property.

If the **sabotage arrow** is implemented, the player will be able to view a list of WEAK points and their Stagger consequences of each enemy, then cause that stagger meter to appear instantly.

### Knightmare

Characters can either fight in their original forms, or use **masks** to become completely clad in armor, known as **Knightmares**. As Knightmares, the original character's stats are not taken into account; the transformed forms are treated as unique characters and leveled separately. This is a way to increase the roster of playable characters, without having to make the story or character development confusing with too many characters. Only the untransformed forms are ever seen in the overworld, with the exception of enemy knights.

### Valve

The game's main customization system. Each character, including Knightmares, have a unique set of **valves** that can be turned either left or right; each side representing an aspect to improve, the side not turned will consequently be impaired. How many "notches" can be turned per valve is improved upon exploration and gameplay, as is the inclusion of certain valves to begin with.

Aspects not only include statistical performance, but also WEAKnesses, resistances, and "passive abilities".

### Experience Memory

Valves are improved only by finding "**memories**" in the overworld, by battle, or by any other source. These mostly improve the potential of one or several characters. May take the form of weapons, events, or anything.

### Temporary non-lethal permadeath

When a playable character is KO'd in battle, they are put in the **recovery** status for a while, and cannot be used in battle. This also happens if the entire team is KO'd. Knightmares have increased recovery time, but functions the same otherwise. This forces the player to experiment with new battle setups.

### Other

* Damage is mostly done in single digits. Thus, the health of most characters are numerically very low, since damage from most moves is 1.

## Example

### Overworld Abilities

* Blind
	+ Long windup. Flashes the enemy in a very short radius in front. While blinded on the overworld, cannot defend against moves.