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Mardek RPG | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Pseudolonewolf |
Publisher(s) | CrazyMonkeyGames, Kongregate |
Platform(s) | Web Browser |
Release | 2007 (Chapters I and II), 2010 (Chapter III and new version of the two previous chapters) |
Genre(s) | RPG |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Mardek RPG is a series of flash-based role playing games developed by Pseudolonewolf. The Mardek series is divided into chapters, with each chapter continuing the previous story arc. As of August 2012 three chapters have been released.
here are informations about gameplay; please avoid using words such as "unique", "interesting" etc.; something like "well-received" would be more objective, I think
Here's something written by Frostblade:
The MARDEK series utilises many aspects of traditional role-playing games, but it also features many significant differences from these. The first apparent distinction is the absence of the character creation. This is due to the game's plot being more restrictive on the characters' personalities than most similar games. For similar reasons, the player will find that there is little or no choice in dialogues; the player is unable to change the course of the events to a notable degree, aside from a few exceptions.
One of the most remarkable differences lies in the statistics. All of the characters come with an own set of these statistics, and there is no way to change them permanently. The only way to alter them is to equip items that may have bonuses to attributes or to activate passive skills with the same effect. The four vital statistics are Strength, Spirit, Vitality and Agility.
There are four more statistics, which are not the properties of the characters themselves; they can only be gained from items, or from spells for the duration of a single battle. These are Attack, Defence, Magic Defence and Evasion.
The games also feature a skill system. Skills can be learned from certain items. The characters need to have the weapons equipped to be able to use the respective skills, unless they have mastered them. The only way to master a certain skill is to use it. Each skill has an AP counter, which increases by one whenever the skill is used. When the AP counter of a certain skill reaches the required limit, it is mastered by the character and can be used without the respective item equipped. There are three main types of skills: Active, Reaction and Passive. Active skills can be activated during the character's turn, using up his or her action. Most of the time, they cost Magic Points (abbreviated MP) to use, but there are exceptions. Reactions are divided into four subtypes, Physical Attack, Physical Defence, Magical Attack and Magical Defence. They need the player to press the X key at the proper time to activate, and they provide a bonus (for Attack reactions, this usually increases damage or provides a chance to inflict a certain status effect, while for Defence reactions, it reduces incoming damage or even gives a chance to evade it completely, or a chance to resist certain elements or status effects). Passive skills, as their name shows, are not activately used during combat, so their AP increases by one for each battle the character has participated in. Passive skills usually provide some general bonus, like increasing attributes, hit points or magic points. It is not possible to equip an unlimited number of reactions and passive skills, though. Each character receives one Reaction Point for every two levels, and every reaction and passive skill has a Reaction Point value. Combinations of these skills are only allowed if their combined Reaction Point value is less or equal to the Reaction Points the character possesses (but they are calculated separately for each category).
People, monsters, skills (and several items) have elements as well. The games use eleven elements. Four Natural (Fire, Water, Earth and Air), two Moral (Light and Dark), two Spiritual (Aether and Fig), two Neutral elements (Physical and Thauma) and one Deific (Divine). Divine is never used as the element of active skills, only for some rare passive ones. Elements generally have strengths and weaknesses; amongst the Natural elements, this shows a circular pattern (Fire is weak against Water, Water is weak against Earth, Earth is weak against Air and Air is weak against Fire), the Moral elements are bipolar (they are both strong and weak against each other), and there is no generic correlation between the Spiritual or the Neutral elements. Characters and opponents also possess elemental resistances, which decrease (or, in case of negative resistance, increases) the damage taken from an attack having the respective element.
Similarly to many games of the genre, the MARDEK series uses different status effects (which are negative) and buffs (which are considered positive). Status effect resistances provide a chance to negate them when they would be inflicted on a character or a monster, and they also provide a chance (equal to one fifth of the resistance value) to remove them on the beginning on one's turn.
The games focus relatively heavily on combat, though the party is given the possibility to avoid fighting with significantly lower-levelled opponents. Battles use a different screen from the one on which the exploration of the areas is done. They are entirely turn-based, the sequence is determined by Agility, one of the base statistics. There are two main types of attacks: Physical and magical. They are affected by different statistics and reactions; moreover, physical attacks are boosted by the equipped weapon's Attack attribute, while magical attacks are not. Similarly, they are reduced by different statistics of the recipient. It is possible to use certain items during combat, to wait or to flee (only from random encounters, though).
Each character has an own, separate inventory. They can equip items to six slots (main hand, off hand - which is disabled for certain party members - , armour, helm, and two accessory slots). Each character has a single weapon type of choice, and can equip weapons that belong to that category. There are also consumable items, some of them can be used both in battles and from the Inventory screen, others are usable only during battles. Items that are related to quests ('critical' items) are not visible from the Inventory screen; the games use a separate section to display them. It is possible to view the properties of the items on the inventory page, also the skills they teach (if they do; some items teach no skills, others may teach several ones, even to different characters) and the descriptions. Aside from the party members' inventories, the Save Crystals provide a vast amount of additional room to store items.
The menu also has an Encyclopaedia section, which records all monsters the party has fought, the people it has met, locations it has visited, and artifacts it has learned of.
Occasionally, puzzle elements can be found in the game - these usually involve gem gates and gem platforms. Gem gates are opened when the gem switch they belong to is turned on, but gem platforms - which are essentially bridges between areas between which otherwise there would be no connection - appear only if the gem switch of their colour is turned off.
The game contains relatively large amounts of optional content, such as secret dungeons, sidequests; the second and third chapters feature an Arena as well. These also give tremendous rewards.
I think it's a good starting point, though some details could be rearranged. I think that status effects and stats could be put in the table rather than raw text. ~ Sun
Finished with the tables and added some bits of information, now I'll go on to something else.
Are the tables really necessary? I would think that it would be better for a Wikipedia article to talk more about the plot than to talk so much about details of the mechanics.... - LurkingShoelaces
I'm not sure. If the people think that if they aren't, feel free to delete them; It seems that it's just me, I'm prone to start wandering around to details when writing. I'm sorry if I'm causing any inconvenience.
Mardek RPG is set on a fictional preindustrial world known as Belfan. Two young boys, Mardek and Deugan, discover a fallen spacecraft containing a dying light elemental alien known as Rohoph. To survive, Rohoph transfers his soul into Mardek, who is also a light elemental. Rohoph's soul transfer allows him to communicate through Mardek's body and gives Mardek new abilities. It is revealed that Rohoph was a member of the Governance de Magi, the ruling body of the worlds dominated by the Annunaki race. The Violet Crystal was a small meteorite that fell into the possession of the Governance de Magi, corrupting the minds of each member. Rohoph attempted to destroy the crystal. He did not succeed, however, and he fled off-world after the Governance sentenced him to death.
When Mardek and Deugan grow older, they enroll in the Royal Guard of Gonzor and begin training to become knighted. They develop a love interest with Emela, who is also enlisted in the Royal Guard. Rohoph remarks that he may have sensed another member of the Governance de Magi on Belfan, most likely in order to destroy him. Moric, a member of the Governance de Magi, arrives in Belfan on a battleship. Using his necromancy, Moric intends to conquer Belfan in addition to his main mission of slaying Rohoph. Although Mardek, Deugan, and Emela kill Moric in Gonzor, Moric survives by taking the body of a fallen hero and returns to his battleship. The trio enlist the help of the Gonzor shaman to teleport onto Moric's battleship. After they slay him a second time, Moric manages to trigger the ship's self destruct sequence before Rohoph seals his soul. The group heads to the escape pods but is stopped by a cybernetic and zombified Dracelon, Moric's personal guard. Realizing that they would not have enough time to defeat the Dracelon before the ship is destroyed, Deugan remains behind to distract it while the others escape. Moric's battleship explodes, and Deugan is presumed dead. For their deeds, the King of Gonzor promotes both Mardek and Emela to Royal Guards, but Emela rejects the promotion and quits for reasons unbeknownst.
Three years after the events of Chapter II, Mardek (and the newly knighted Donovan and Sharla) are sent to the Sun Temple to aid High Priest Shamash. They eventually reach the Dark Temple located beneath it, and on their way they encounter Clavis (a man telling them about the importance of 'keystones') and Sslen'ck (the chieftain of the Reptoid village of Xantusia). The latter becomes their ally and accompanies them. After failing to prevent the Mystery Man from stealing the Dark Crystal, they are summoned by the King of Goznor. He appears to be possessed (as his eyes glow), and he orders that Mardek brings him the elemental crystals. He and his companions decide that they collect the artifacts but only to prevent the monarch from obtaining them. Mardek recruits several allies before heading out to find the temples. At first, they visit the Water temple under the surface of Lake Qur (with the assistance of the Goznor Shaman). After battling the Water Guardian, he is allowed to take the crystal. He learns about the location of the Fire temple - inside the volcano of Crimson Peak. He visits the temple, and manages to acquire the Fire crystal as well after defeating the Fire Guardian. At this point, Gloria is capable of animating Meraedor's metal man, but due to the inventor's stutter, accidentally four souls are summoned into the body instead of one. With the automaton's aid, they can enter the Lost Monastery, where they take the Monastery Stone and give it to Vudu in the Aeropolitan monastery in exchange for a runestone, which they use to enter the Earth temple. After fighting with the guardian and Muriance, they collect the Earth crystal as well, and are preparing to enter the Air temple when they are stopped by two other knights of Goznor that the King ordered that they head to see him immediately. They do so. It is revealed that Qualna was controlling the king all the time. Due to Rohoph's fervour, Mardek and his companions fight and lethally wound the monarch. Clavis turns out to have been nothing else than a disguise of Qualna. After the Annunaki fails to convince Rohoph to go with him, he leaves through an astral tunnel. Rohoph follows him in his anger and slays him in the Astral tunnel.
short informations about characters - heroes, villains and others: where in plot they appeared, if they participate in battles, what are their weapons and such
In MARDEK, additional party members play a crucial role regarding the advancement in the plot; especially in the second chapter, where two of them (out of three) cannot even be removed from the party. In the third game, the selection is much more free, but certain locations can only be accessed with the members related to them in the party; similarly, accepting some quests may need certain party members being in the active party.
The Governance de Magi is a council that rules the world of Anshar. It consists of the seven most powerful Annunaki (the race that inhabits Anshar) - one of each element. They are the main villains of MARDEK RPG. As it turns out, they used to be honest and well-meaning before their corruption by the Violet Crystal.
here should go more detailed informations about development process; not from Pseudo's point of view, mind you, but rather more about release dates and also changes made to chapters over time, as well as chapter 3 mechanics being re-adopted to previous chapters
Jay is Games praised Mardek RPG for its length and light parody aspects while also expressing excitement over its complex storyline, saying "it's difficult to fully do justice to the storyline of this game without spoiling it...you can't believe how much I want to talk about [scene redacted] and how I screamed in real life when I found out that [plot twist redacted]..." [1] Jay is Games gave Mardek 2nd place in a Best of 2010 competition under the Role Playing category. [2]
here go informations about how MARDEK RPG was received; references to reviews would be greatly appreciated, I think; also, if I recall, chapter 3 won some award on Kongregate or so, so it would be worth mentioning as well; and remember, Wikipedia has some nice formatting thingies to make references!
This is not a Wikipedia article: It is an individual user's work-in-progress page, and may be incomplete and/or unreliable. For guidance on developing this draft, see
Wikipedia:So you made a userspace draft. Find sources:
Google (
books ·
news ·
scholar ·
free images ·
WP refs) ·
FENS ·
JSTOR ·
TWL |
Mardek RPG | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Pseudolonewolf |
Publisher(s) | CrazyMonkeyGames, Kongregate |
Platform(s) | Web Browser |
Release | 2007 (Chapters I and II), 2010 (Chapter III and new version of the two previous chapters) |
Genre(s) | RPG |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Mardek RPG is a series of flash-based role playing games developed by Pseudolonewolf. The Mardek series is divided into chapters, with each chapter continuing the previous story arc. As of August 2012 three chapters have been released.
here are informations about gameplay; please avoid using words such as "unique", "interesting" etc.; something like "well-received" would be more objective, I think
Here's something written by Frostblade:
The MARDEK series utilises many aspects of traditional role-playing games, but it also features many significant differences from these. The first apparent distinction is the absence of the character creation. This is due to the game's plot being more restrictive on the characters' personalities than most similar games. For similar reasons, the player will find that there is little or no choice in dialogues; the player is unable to change the course of the events to a notable degree, aside from a few exceptions.
One of the most remarkable differences lies in the statistics. All of the characters come with an own set of these statistics, and there is no way to change them permanently. The only way to alter them is to equip items that may have bonuses to attributes or to activate passive skills with the same effect. The four vital statistics are Strength, Spirit, Vitality and Agility.
There are four more statistics, which are not the properties of the characters themselves; they can only be gained from items, or from spells for the duration of a single battle. These are Attack, Defence, Magic Defence and Evasion.
The games also feature a skill system. Skills can be learned from certain items. The characters need to have the weapons equipped to be able to use the respective skills, unless they have mastered them. The only way to master a certain skill is to use it. Each skill has an AP counter, which increases by one whenever the skill is used. When the AP counter of a certain skill reaches the required limit, it is mastered by the character and can be used without the respective item equipped. There are three main types of skills: Active, Reaction and Passive. Active skills can be activated during the character's turn, using up his or her action. Most of the time, they cost Magic Points (abbreviated MP) to use, but there are exceptions. Reactions are divided into four subtypes, Physical Attack, Physical Defence, Magical Attack and Magical Defence. They need the player to press the X key at the proper time to activate, and they provide a bonus (for Attack reactions, this usually increases damage or provides a chance to inflict a certain status effect, while for Defence reactions, it reduces incoming damage or even gives a chance to evade it completely, or a chance to resist certain elements or status effects). Passive skills, as their name shows, are not activately used during combat, so their AP increases by one for each battle the character has participated in. Passive skills usually provide some general bonus, like increasing attributes, hit points or magic points. It is not possible to equip an unlimited number of reactions and passive skills, though. Each character receives one Reaction Point for every two levels, and every reaction and passive skill has a Reaction Point value. Combinations of these skills are only allowed if their combined Reaction Point value is less or equal to the Reaction Points the character possesses (but they are calculated separately for each category).
People, monsters, skills (and several items) have elements as well. The games use eleven elements. Four Natural (Fire, Water, Earth and Air), two Moral (Light and Dark), two Spiritual (Aether and Fig), two Neutral elements (Physical and Thauma) and one Deific (Divine). Divine is never used as the element of active skills, only for some rare passive ones. Elements generally have strengths and weaknesses; amongst the Natural elements, this shows a circular pattern (Fire is weak against Water, Water is weak against Earth, Earth is weak against Air and Air is weak against Fire), the Moral elements are bipolar (they are both strong and weak against each other), and there is no generic correlation between the Spiritual or the Neutral elements. Characters and opponents also possess elemental resistances, which decrease (or, in case of negative resistance, increases) the damage taken from an attack having the respective element.
Similarly to many games of the genre, the MARDEK series uses different status effects (which are negative) and buffs (which are considered positive). Status effect resistances provide a chance to negate them when they would be inflicted on a character or a monster, and they also provide a chance (equal to one fifth of the resistance value) to remove them on the beginning on one's turn.
The games focus relatively heavily on combat, though the party is given the possibility to avoid fighting with significantly lower-levelled opponents. Battles use a different screen from the one on which the exploration of the areas is done. They are entirely turn-based, the sequence is determined by Agility, one of the base statistics. There are two main types of attacks: Physical and magical. They are affected by different statistics and reactions; moreover, physical attacks are boosted by the equipped weapon's Attack attribute, while magical attacks are not. Similarly, they are reduced by different statistics of the recipient. It is possible to use certain items during combat, to wait or to flee (only from random encounters, though).
Each character has an own, separate inventory. They can equip items to six slots (main hand, off hand - which is disabled for certain party members - , armour, helm, and two accessory slots). Each character has a single weapon type of choice, and can equip weapons that belong to that category. There are also consumable items, some of them can be used both in battles and from the Inventory screen, others are usable only during battles. Items that are related to quests ('critical' items) are not visible from the Inventory screen; the games use a separate section to display them. It is possible to view the properties of the items on the inventory page, also the skills they teach (if they do; some items teach no skills, others may teach several ones, even to different characters) and the descriptions. Aside from the party members' inventories, the Save Crystals provide a vast amount of additional room to store items.
The menu also has an Encyclopaedia section, which records all monsters the party has fought, the people it has met, locations it has visited, and artifacts it has learned of.
Occasionally, puzzle elements can be found in the game - these usually involve gem gates and gem platforms. Gem gates are opened when the gem switch they belong to is turned on, but gem platforms - which are essentially bridges between areas between which otherwise there would be no connection - appear only if the gem switch of their colour is turned off.
The game contains relatively large amounts of optional content, such as secret dungeons, sidequests; the second and third chapters feature an Arena as well. These also give tremendous rewards.
I think it's a good starting point, though some details could be rearranged. I think that status effects and stats could be put in the table rather than raw text. ~ Sun
Finished with the tables and added some bits of information, now I'll go on to something else.
Are the tables really necessary? I would think that it would be better for a Wikipedia article to talk more about the plot than to talk so much about details of the mechanics.... - LurkingShoelaces
I'm not sure. If the people think that if they aren't, feel free to delete them; It seems that it's just me, I'm prone to start wandering around to details when writing. I'm sorry if I'm causing any inconvenience.
Mardek RPG is set on a fictional preindustrial world known as Belfan. Two young boys, Mardek and Deugan, discover a fallen spacecraft containing a dying light elemental alien known as Rohoph. To survive, Rohoph transfers his soul into Mardek, who is also a light elemental. Rohoph's soul transfer allows him to communicate through Mardek's body and gives Mardek new abilities. It is revealed that Rohoph was a member of the Governance de Magi, the ruling body of the worlds dominated by the Annunaki race. The Violet Crystal was a small meteorite that fell into the possession of the Governance de Magi, corrupting the minds of each member. Rohoph attempted to destroy the crystal. He did not succeed, however, and he fled off-world after the Governance sentenced him to death.
When Mardek and Deugan grow older, they enroll in the Royal Guard of Gonzor and begin training to become knighted. They develop a love interest with Emela, who is also enlisted in the Royal Guard. Rohoph remarks that he may have sensed another member of the Governance de Magi on Belfan, most likely in order to destroy him. Moric, a member of the Governance de Magi, arrives in Belfan on a battleship. Using his necromancy, Moric intends to conquer Belfan in addition to his main mission of slaying Rohoph. Although Mardek, Deugan, and Emela kill Moric in Gonzor, Moric survives by taking the body of a fallen hero and returns to his battleship. The trio enlist the help of the Gonzor shaman to teleport onto Moric's battleship. After they slay him a second time, Moric manages to trigger the ship's self destruct sequence before Rohoph seals his soul. The group heads to the escape pods but is stopped by a cybernetic and zombified Dracelon, Moric's personal guard. Realizing that they would not have enough time to defeat the Dracelon before the ship is destroyed, Deugan remains behind to distract it while the others escape. Moric's battleship explodes, and Deugan is presumed dead. For their deeds, the King of Gonzor promotes both Mardek and Emela to Royal Guards, but Emela rejects the promotion and quits for reasons unbeknownst.
Three years after the events of Chapter II, Mardek (and the newly knighted Donovan and Sharla) are sent to the Sun Temple to aid High Priest Shamash. They eventually reach the Dark Temple located beneath it, and on their way they encounter Clavis (a man telling them about the importance of 'keystones') and Sslen'ck (the chieftain of the Reptoid village of Xantusia). The latter becomes their ally and accompanies them. After failing to prevent the Mystery Man from stealing the Dark Crystal, they are summoned by the King of Goznor. He appears to be possessed (as his eyes glow), and he orders that Mardek brings him the elemental crystals. He and his companions decide that they collect the artifacts but only to prevent the monarch from obtaining them. Mardek recruits several allies before heading out to find the temples. At first, they visit the Water temple under the surface of Lake Qur (with the assistance of the Goznor Shaman). After battling the Water Guardian, he is allowed to take the crystal. He learns about the location of the Fire temple - inside the volcano of Crimson Peak. He visits the temple, and manages to acquire the Fire crystal as well after defeating the Fire Guardian. At this point, Gloria is capable of animating Meraedor's metal man, but due to the inventor's stutter, accidentally four souls are summoned into the body instead of one. With the automaton's aid, they can enter the Lost Monastery, where they take the Monastery Stone and give it to Vudu in the Aeropolitan monastery in exchange for a runestone, which they use to enter the Earth temple. After fighting with the guardian and Muriance, they collect the Earth crystal as well, and are preparing to enter the Air temple when they are stopped by two other knights of Goznor that the King ordered that they head to see him immediately. They do so. It is revealed that Qualna was controlling the king all the time. Due to Rohoph's fervour, Mardek and his companions fight and lethally wound the monarch. Clavis turns out to have been nothing else than a disguise of Qualna. After the Annunaki fails to convince Rohoph to go with him, he leaves through an astral tunnel. Rohoph follows him in his anger and slays him in the Astral tunnel.
short informations about characters - heroes, villains and others: where in plot they appeared, if they participate in battles, what are their weapons and such
In MARDEK, additional party members play a crucial role regarding the advancement in the plot; especially in the second chapter, where two of them (out of three) cannot even be removed from the party. In the third game, the selection is much more free, but certain locations can only be accessed with the members related to them in the party; similarly, accepting some quests may need certain party members being in the active party.
The Governance de Magi is a council that rules the world of Anshar. It consists of the seven most powerful Annunaki (the race that inhabits Anshar) - one of each element. They are the main villains of MARDEK RPG. As it turns out, they used to be honest and well-meaning before their corruption by the Violet Crystal.
here should go more detailed informations about development process; not from Pseudo's point of view, mind you, but rather more about release dates and also changes made to chapters over time, as well as chapter 3 mechanics being re-adopted to previous chapters
Jay is Games praised Mardek RPG for its length and light parody aspects while also expressing excitement over its complex storyline, saying "it's difficult to fully do justice to the storyline of this game without spoiling it...you can't believe how much I want to talk about [scene redacted] and how I screamed in real life when I found out that [plot twist redacted]..." [1] Jay is Games gave Mardek 2nd place in a Best of 2010 competition under the Role Playing category. [2]
here go informations about how MARDEK RPG was received; references to reviews would be greatly appreciated, I think; also, if I recall, chapter 3 won some award on Kongregate or so, so it would be worth mentioning as well; and remember, Wikipedia has some nice formatting thingies to make references!