- Border - Windows game

Border is a turn based RPG that defies almost all traditions to create a new and logical approach to the genre.

Playable Demo available: Dropbox.com

Do you like old school RPGs, but find many of their aspects to artificial and illogical?
Border`s gameplay was designed to be consistent and as authentic as possible.
An RPG driven by logic.

What do we mean by this?
-This world have its rule set, and it applies to all situations.
-The lore is consistent, and never broken for cheap 4th wall breaking jokes.
-No hand holding. We trust the player to be intelligent and find their own content.
-No meaningless quests for the sake of padding the length of the game.
-No nonsensical loot, puzzles, and in general anything that contradicts the lore and logic of the world.
-A huge living breathing world with 8 years of work behind its fiction.
-An entirely new turn based battle system with no heals or potion abuse to get around difficulty.
-Environmental storytelling, and tons of optional lore, if you have a question about the world and its working, you can find the answer!
-Natural side quest integration, important events are hinted at by the environment and they occur with, or without you.

The game will take around 30 Hours to complete without any of the 20 Hours worth of optional content.
The game will cost around 8-10$ at release.
Exploration is an important element of the game, access to the entire world is gained halfway through the game, from that point on the player is completely free to tackle the optional content to their liking.
This content is centered around the back-story of the characters and the factions of the world, you`ll never have to do errands for random citizens. Logic leads the whole design of the game, this also means you wont find money on non humanoid enemies, find chests in random forests, and working traps in ancient temples that apparently no one discovered before.

While these old school elements are charming, they hurt the lore of the world and break immersion.

The battle system.
-Battles are triggered by touching enemies on the exploration maps, enemies can be avoided relatively easily, no random encounters.
-Battles are focused on keeping a balance of offensive and defensive moves.
-Healing, and Reviving characters during battle is not available.
-Your first line of defense is your Guard gauge. Once this gauge reaches 0, your Guard is broken.
-When your Guard is broken all damage received will be deducted from your actual Health Points
-When your Guard is broken you have to try and regain your balance, and recover some of the Guard gauge.
-All attacks, skills, magic have a Guard cost.
-Defending for 1 turn recovers a portion of the Guard gauge.
-No traditional elementals, instead strengths and weaknesses are related to the races and weapon types.
These rules apply to both you and your enemies. Each of your character have their own strengths and weaknesses. Customizing and upgrading your characters is linked closely with the party members and their specialties, instead of relying on shops, or some video game concept.

The World of Border.
-Lore.
The worlds of Border were created from three stones wielded by three Gods, they are known as the three Creators.
After creating the three worlds and linking them with the polar rings of Border, these Gods eventually disappeared, leaving behind the 3 races, Humans, Spirits, and the Gods. After 2 ages of relative peace and calm, a Calamity known as the Dragons arrived and started tormenting all three worlds. For the following 4 ages the 3 races battled the Dragons until eventually the king of all Dragons, Ragnarok reached the world of the Gods. The Gods realizing their defeat was unavoidable, decided to sacrifice themselves, and partially close the Border to seal Ragnarok in their world and preventing him from accessing the other two worlds.
This war however unified the majority of humans to form the greatest empire even known, Midgar. Soon this empire expanded its power even further and started experimenting with unnatural magic in an attempt to discover a way to the God`s immortality. During this time the surviving 6 Gods revealed themselves and challenged the rule of this empire. Eventually this lead to the Gods executing the emperor of Midgar, this lead to a 450 years long war. The war ended in a cataclysmic event when in an attempt to kill the Gods a portion of the eastern continent was consumed by Magic. After the war Midgar was reduced to a friction of its territory and the Gods warned the world Raganarok will eventually break through the Border and the age of Dragons will return.

-Races.
-Humans, they are identical to us, but live for an average of 100 years. All Humans are capable of using magic easily with the help of Glyphs, this lead to a world where automated magic, known as Manatek lead to the development of easy flight with airships, and cities placed upon floating islands.
-Spirits, they are the representation of nature, Spirits have a weaker physical presence, but are crucial to the natural flow of Mana, they usually take the form of Animals, but are larger and almost transparent.
-Demons, nature twisted, Demons were once spirits who became aggressive to protect something. They first appeared during the war against the Dragons. Recently they reappeared in large numbers and seams to hunt Humans.
-Gods, an extinct race. Having only 6 survivors , the Gods were once the watchers of all worlds, they are completely human in appearance and physiology, however they stop aging when reaching adulthood , and posses incredible strength, speed, and are adapt at all Magic. They now live on the Border, watching over the seal placed on Ragnarok.
-Dragons, the children of Ragnarok, They usually have 6 legs and 4 eyes, Dragons posses incredible power, and massive beast, higher ranked Dragons can talk and wield Magic. Dragons posses the unique ability to wield Flare, something that disintegrates all Mana, and existence itself.

-The story.
The story takes place 8 years prior to the predicted return of Ragnarok. When the main character manages to survive a fight with a God, this makes him important to the various factions of the world. The story quickly escalates into a war between the secret organization known as the Core, and the Gods, while the Dragons start to regain their power and await the return of their father Ragnarok.
The main themes of the game include the irreversible nature of time, atonement, facing one`s true self, and taking responsibility for those actions.. And the true grey nature of morality.
The story is dark and tackles controversial themes of faith, religion, morality, and evolution at the cost of life, both on an emotional and physical level.
The game is the first in a trilogy of games that will complete the story of Border. It was necessary to break the story into 3 parts to avoid a 4-5 years development cycle. However the ending for this game will be done in a fashion that even if we never get the chance to do the other two chapters it will be still a satisfying ending.

The game has controller support.
You can save anywhere.
The game includes themes of sexual abuse, use of alcohol and drugs, violence, torture, and abusive language.
The game uses rpg maker vx ace as its engine.