The Opening of the World
Introduction
"The Opening of the World" is an action-adventure and slice-of-life RPG where your choices have a real impact! In Chapter 1, you play Curran and his brother Keeran in a magical fantasy world on their first day back at school. Attend lessons with friends Rahna and Kareem, hang out after school, and help the people of Catalpa. Be cautious with your choices, as they can lead to consequences like detention. Decide whether to team up with friends for quests or go solo. You can also interact with almost every object in the game and explore Catalpa to your heart's content!
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Gameplay
In The Opening of the World, your choices matter!
There are no random battle encounters, just timed battle events and puzzles.
There are three layers of quests.
Main Quest, Side Quests and Hidden Quests.
To progress to the next chapter, the Main Quests must be completed. Side Quests are optional but need to be completed before finishing the chapter. You will receive a warning before the chapter ends, so you won't miss out on completing any Side Quests.
Finally, hidden quests are not explicitly listed in the quest log. You have to find and complete these quests based on instructions in the game or by paying attention to the dialogue. These hidden quests are not tied to specific chapters so that they can be completed at your own pace. Side quests and hidden quests are great ways to assist the people of Catalpa in obtaining valuable items and earning extra experience!
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Story
Curran, Keeran, Rahna and Kareem are in their penultimate year at Catalpa Academy. Each character faces unique challenges and backgrounds. As friends, they aim to support one another and find adventure wherever they go. As you explore Catalpa, you may begin to notice that this magical land is not as peaceful as it seems to be. You will soon learn about the harsh governing of the land, the backdrop violence that Catalpa emerged from and a deep-rooted issue at the heart of Curran and Keeran's family home.
The story attempts to maintain a comedic slice-of-life style above the seriousness that slowly emerges. Chapter 1 is simply the introduction to this arc, so it steers more toward humorous dialogue.
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Future
"The Opening of the World" is an ambitious project with five loosely planned arcs, each with five chapters. However, this is just the dream. I am not getting carried away right now, as this is a hobby. Chapter 1 has been in production since 2019. I have been using RPGMAKER since 2011. The near future focus is to start work on Chapter 2. I am hoping Chapter 2 isn't going to take too long, as most assets are done. I am then going to focus on chapter by chapter.
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How to play!
Click run game!
- Left-click to select.
- Right-click to open the menu or cancel.
-If you're using a desktop PC or laptop, use the keyboard direction arrows. Press the Esc button to go back.
- To toggle the in-game map of Catalpa, you must press the page-down button. You must press the [Fn] button + page down button on notebook laptops.
I have attempted an HTML5 upload. Despite the game's many parallax mapping and parallel events, the upload seems to be a success. There is some lag when entering or leaving maps, so for the best experience, I recommend downloading the game. Nevertheless, by uploading HTML5, I hope more people can access my awesome game!
I will upload the Windows, Linux, and Mac versions below for download.
For Steam Deck, I have found downloading the Windows version and running through Proton experimental works the best.
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Mobile Devices
Mobile devices should be able to play the HTML5 game in the browser. However, I noticed that iOS Safari doesn't play sound. I recommend using the Google Chrome app instead of Safari, which will fix the audio issue on Apple devices.
The main drawback for Mobile users is that unless your phone has a keyboard option, you cannot toggle the in-game map of Catalpa. Usually, this is done by pressing the page-down button. However, the map is not necessary to finish the Chapter.
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Glitches/Bugs
If you find any glitches or bugs, game-breaking or otherwise, please post them in the comments! I am keen to work on these and provide the best user experience!
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Thank you, and I hope you enjoy my game!
I would greatly appreciate your sharing this game and rating. I am also keen to respond to feedback, so please comment below! I will gladly get back to you and take your feedback on board!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- The Opening of the World Chapter 1 - Bug Fixes.15 days ago
- The Opening of the World - Chapter 1 Release17 days ago
Comments
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nice parallax mapping. games that account for choices can be very challenging to make and keep track of, I'd know from my own experience trying to make a similar game and never finishing it, so good luck with the rest of the chapters.
main point of feedback i'd give is a few inconsistencies with some character dialogue being in "" quotation marks and others aren't, and a few spelling and grammar mistakes. (Sometimes not capitalizing first letter of a new sentence (i'm doing that right now but thats just how i type messages 🐈))
I do like the use of text codes for changing text size and colours, makes dialogue more interesting to look at, and having pauses after full stops and commas make it flow better.
a few sound effects, like the chicken bwark, mute the music while being played, are you using ME sounds for them instead of SE?
unfortunately the game froze upon damaging the battler during the first combat encounter, it might be an issue solely with the browser version, so if you'd like further feedback i'll try downloading instead. 🐈
Thank you so much for your feedback! I appreciate it!
Oh, that's a shame the browser version stopped during the Combat Class battle against Lawrence. Yes, I think there might be an issue with the browser version, even though I played the browser version and completed the chapter.
It would be great if you could try the rest of it by downloading instead! Your feedback is beneficial.
I did use the ME sounds rather than the SE. I've now switched that over and reuploaded the browser and Windows files. Now the chicken bwark shouldn't mute the school music.
I've also fixed more quotations and spelling and grammar inconsistencies as well.
Of course, making a "choices matter" type of game is a time-consuming endeavour. Nevertheless, even as a hobby, I have a lot of passion for this project and am invested in the world I have created. I will keep chipping away at it whenever I get free time. That's probably why I decided to release it in chapters. Otherwise, I would never get anything formally released to get feedback on.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to share your initial thoughts. I would greatly appreciate it if you found the time to finish the rest of the chapter!
ive finished chapter 1 through the download, took about an hour, i also completed all the quests including the hidden. found a few bugs, but none that caused freezing like last time.
the characters have a pretty "anime-esque" way of talking, i guess the word "theatric" might be good, im not saying this as a negative its just something to note. (the green haired one kinda looks like Zoro from One Piece)
chest placements were good, i managed to find them all, the lilypad one had a creative sequence to get there and back.
Judging from the history class section you're eager to present your worldbuilding, make sure to take it slow, sprinkle the details to get players interested enough to become invested, a lot of rpg maker games struggle with holding back big walls of text and too much info mentioning random names of random places and random people will dissuade players from becoming invested in what they're reading.
I'm curious how many rpg maker projects you've made before this one, if this is your first successfully published game then its pretty good.
onto the bugs:
- the event that triggers when entering the academy talking about chickens can repeat if stepped into again (before the chickens are all collected)
- the first overworld music that plays is louder in my right ear than left
- walking up and down the top stairs of Catapla Mountains changes the music or replays it if already playing, and the music doesnt return to its original track after playing
- the game cant find the file Close1.ogg in the rat place, i can click retry and continue playing but the error will pop up every few seconds unless i close and reopen the game
Thank you so much for your valuable feedback! Technically, this is my second release of the same game. The first was published 11 years ago, in 2013. However, that was just one post I made in the RPGMaker Forums that I never updated. I lost all my game data on that one. You can see the original screenshots here.
Yes, I guess the dialogue I was going for was more 'theatric'. That's just a design decision I made. I think it suits the chapter well, as there are not too many serious elements in Chapter 1, and I want the characters' personalities to shine.
The history class section was, perhaps, the trickiest to do because I had to a) make a lesson about history exciting and b) try not to turn off the player with walls of dialouge. Nevertheless, I will keep thinking about how to shorten this segment and see where else I can scatter the lore. I tried adding pictures to capture what the dialogue is talking about, but that only enages the player to a certain extent. In Chapter 2, the history lesson will be a quiz to make things more interesting.
I have also addressed the bugs you picked up and reuploaded the HTML5 and Windows files. Thank you once again for this!
When the player has collected the chickens and attempts to leave, the receptionist should stop Curran and instruct him to find his timetable. If the player has found the timetable, the receptionist will instruct Curran to go to the lesson.
I have fixed the overworld music. For some reason, the music's pan setting was to the right rather than the middle. I have gone through and corrected that back to the middle.
The Catalpa Mountain stairs replayed the same song but at a different pitch. I have fixed that to maintain the same pitch as before.
Lastly, the Close1.ogg couldn't be found in any of my game files for some reason. I have identified where I used this in the Catalpa cellar and deleted them.
Thanks once again for your valuable feedback! Your the first online person to kindly take the time to do this and I really appreciate it!