How to describe the gameplay of Aozora's Adventure 64

So after a few ideas flew through my head recently I decided to give everyone a brief description of the general gameplay of Aozora's Adventure 64, it's sequel, 64 2, and spinoffs 64 Darkness and 64 Darkness 2.

The games play as a mish-mash of platformers, beat 'em ups, hack and slashers, RPG's, and FPSes. Player characters have 3D Mario-styled movements, a hack-and-slash combat system ala games like Devil May Cry, weapon swapping systems ala Donkey Kong 64 (but much faster/instant, with two slots for weapons ala the Halo series), and a GUI styled after the one found in the Kingdom Hearts games. It's RPG mechanics come from getting points, ala Super Paper Mario, to level up player's Health, Attack, Defense, Weapon Attack, and Weapon Defense.

You have a movement joystick, a joystick for changing camera angles, a D-Pad used for activating either the Quick Menu in singlepalyer or taunts/ping in multiplayer, a jump button, two attack buttons (one for light/main and another for heavy/alt) a crouch button, a dodge button, and a lock-on button.

During the game's single player story modes, Aozora/Dedrick can find a large variety of what's known as "Gear", which include swords, guns, hammers, gloves, boomerangs, and starting in 64 2, miscellaneous tools that can be equipped to give extra abilities. On consoles, pressing "Weapon Switch L" and "Weapon Switch R" will cycle between melee attacks, the first weapon and the second weapon.

*Swords: Any bladed weapon falls under this category. These are secondary Melee options that allow players to attack differently than with basic melee, such as with greater range, higher agility/speed, or attack power, along with additional perks and effects.
*Guns: Used to weaken foes from a distance by firing bullets and other projectiles. Includes automatic firing weapons, shotguns, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers. Guns that are more effective at close range tend to deal greater damage.
*Hammers: Large objects on a stick used to pound opponents with. They tend to have the strongest attack power of any of the weapons, but can be somewhat slow, including weighing down a user and their maneuverability should they have it currently equipped.
*Gloves/Boots: Unlike other weapons, these are always shown on the wearer's hands at all times and are active when standard melee is selected. These enhance the user's melee attacks in some way, such as adding effects or providing them with elemental damage, among other boosts.
*Miscellaneous Tools: Anything that isn't used for directly attacking, either to boost something on the user, assist allies, or disrupt opponents. Sometimes, these tools will be in effect when the weapon in the other slot or standard melee is being used.

Gear can provide attack, defense, or speed boosts when equipped (even if not currently in the user's hands), alongside various types of elemental damage. In Multiplayer, the players instead use "mass-produced" versions that are player-balanced and sometimes give out nerfs/stat reductions when used if wielding the weapon has some kind of positive stat enhancement.

In Multiplayer, players create a custom avatar from scratch, which can use one of the following body styles, available in both genders.

*Child
*Teenager
*Young Adult
*Slim Adult
*Muscular Adult
*XL (Heavy) Adult

Avatars can be customized in many, many ways, with simple and advanced customization. In Advanced, players pick front hair style, top hair style, back hair style, eyes (including eye shape, color (of both the iris and the sclera, as well as adding eye shadow), nose, mouth, ears, headwear, head accessory, neck, shirt (with three layers to allow for open coats and the like), wrist-wear, hands, belts, pants-top, pants-bottom (also with multiple players), socks (if wanted), and footwear. All of these parts can be individually colored, some even with multiple colors/patterns. Tattoos on the skin and decals/patches on clothes are also possible.

Each type of avatar has different base stats, with varying power, defense, and agility. Switching genders does not change the base stats, so therefore a female Young Adult will have the same base stats as a male Young Adult. Stats can be customized by adjusting each one individually- when rising one stat, the others will drop steadily. Depending on how you change your stats and what weapons/equipments you pick, your character is given one of seven different labels.

*Balanced - A style that can play well on any role.
*Offensive - A style geared for directly attacking forces.
*Defensive - A style that is geared for guarding defending key locations on a map, but can also deal damage if necessary
*Speedy - A style based on high speed, usually enforcing hit-and-run strategy, but is quite frail.
*Tank - The opposite of Speedy. They're big, can take and deal hits, but move slow.
*Support - A style that provides direct aid to allies and/or disrupt enemy forces, while having small offensive presence.
*Tricky - A variation of Balanced, a character that battles through unorthodox strategies or a perfect blend of two different playstyles without going into Balanced.

You can save up to 30 different character designs and bring 1 into each battle, with 5 weapon loadouts for each character with the ability to swipe weapons from downed enemies and the map itself and use them until death, though some gametypes/maps will start you off with no weapons or a basic weapon set, requiring you to seek out equipment on the map.

The following game modes are what I'm considering for the 64 series, with game modes colored blue being free-for-all with no set teams.

==Deathmatch Arenas==

Deathmatch
>Team Deathmatch
Last Man Standing
>Team LMS
Zombies
Juggernaut
>Team Juggernaut
Possession
>Team Possession
King of the Hill
>Team KotH
Territories
Tag
>Sticky Bombers
Boss Battles
>Light vs. Dark

(if arenas are symmetrical, CTF game modes can be played as well)

==CtF Arenas==
Capture the Flag
>One Flag CTF
>Stockpile Flags
Attack the Base
Team KotH
Territories
Assault
>One Bomb Assault
Double Payload
Two-Team Payload

==Defender Arenas==
Payload
Battery Attack
Flag Defender
Team Sneaking

==Circuit Arenas==
Race
Demolition Derby

==Other Arenas==
Balloon Race
Water Balancers

==Sports Centers==
Bowling
Billiards
Hockey
Golf
Shuffleboard


(Currently in progress)

Aozora the Fighters: Character Roster

Text only cause I'm lazy.

1. Aozora
2. Satoru
3. Keisha
4. Zik
5. Satoru
6. Gaiden Support character
7. Genroy
8. Fakhriya
9. Matthias
10. Shinobu
11. Taiyang
12. Orochi
13. Kento
14. Keanu
15. Masayoshi
16. Chinatsu
17. Girou
18. Saniko
19. Kazuhiko
20. Bachi
21. Sharkane
22. Grip
23. Gnear
24. Mignonette
25. Talisha
26. Nirave
27. Rodrigo
28. Ptolema
29. Gratien
30. Lachlan (Latin Pirate)
31. Kaberno (Big Mecha Fist Boy)
32. Claud (Sand Bottle Teen)
33. Stanislav (Russian Mecha Boy )
34. Eugene
35. Jullian
36. Randolph (Joust Man)
37. Wernher (Warfare Man)
38. Florencia (Festival Woman)
39. Yukon (Flashfreeze Man)
40. Motokazu (Tempest Man)
41. Edurizo (Avalanche Man)
42. Chouko (Carnival Woman)
43. Hiromori (Jolt Man)
44. (Shrine Woman)
45. Butch (Outlaw Man)
46. Kalmanu (Congo Man)
47. Michitaro (Pursuit Man)
48. Ottomar (Clockwork Man)
49. (Retro Man)
50. Malia (Maple Woman)
51. Tremaine (Titan Man)
52. Konomi (Meteor Woman)
53. Niji (Spectrum Man)
54. Fayato
55. Erebos
56. Kelthilda
57. Robo-Aozora
58. Vasuman (Eruption Man)
59. Aberthol (Glacier Man)
60. Uchizora
61. Joker
62. Orpheus

Character with placeholder or not final name

Easy Unlockable - Finish one round of Arcade or wait 4 days, then battle after a match

Medium Unlockable - Meet Condition, then battle after a match

Hard Unlockable - Pre-Final Bosses - Playable in Console Only, Meet Condition, then battle

Final Bosses - Playable in Console Only as Nerfed versions in Multiplayer, Meet Condition, no battle required

Notes:

*#6 is the second character in this collection of sketches.

*#30-33 are described here.

*#35-38 are the Roast Elites with #58 being the leader, described here.

*#39-41 are the Frost Elites with #59 being the leader

*#42-49 are the Rock-Aozora III bosses, with weapons described here. #50-53 are the "four extras"

*Several characters also have Wiki pages named after their filler "Man/Woman" names, including a description of their appearances.

Rock-Aozora 3: Final Roster + Wepaons list

Alright, I've been plotting this for a while, so here's the final roster (of filler names, that is) for Rock-Aozora 3:

Main 8 bosses:

Carnival Woman - Carnival Scythe
Jolt Man - Jolt Anchor
Shrine Woman - Vortex Blade
Outlaw Man - Outlaw Pistol
Congo Man - Melon Storm
Pursuit Man - Shadow Pursuit
Clockwork Man - Seeker Beam
Retro Man - Pixel Shield

The four extras (they do not give players weapons):

Maple Woman
Titan Man
Meteor Woman
Spectrum Man

If any of you have character name ideas, please let me know (so I can get these guys onto the Wiki)

Here are the weapon icons for the obtainable weapons in-game, with their functions listed below. Support items not listed.

Carnival Scythe: Think a giant (double the size of) Shadow Blade from Mega Man 3, except there's a bigger limit (3 instead of 1) as to how many you can throw at a time. Plus, one will continue traveling behind you if you don't catch it.

Jolt Anchor: Doubles as an utility item, shoot and you'll fire two syringe-shaped darts attached to your buster via metal wires that will latch onto an enemy (even bosses) and drain their health, recovering your own. You can still move (albeit at a reduced speed) and can keep the anchors on one enemy for as long as you want until you're forced to retract them after you suck in up to 12 units of health. You can also 

Vortex Blade: Fired similiar to Carnival Scythe, but instead of returning to the user, it stops in place, extends eight blades (four main blades and four smaller blades), and starts spinning and firing mini- blades all around the screen in alternating + and x patterns for approx. three seconds. When it's done, it charges forwards from the direction it was fired in while continuing to spin, doing massive damage to anything that dares get in it's way. You can only fire one at a time, and after firing you can continue to use the Aozora Buster until the Vortex Blade dashes off.

Outlaw Pistol: Psycho Missile from Megamari on crack, it now has a limit of three on-screen at a time, and the explosion from the Outlaw Pistol's bullets continue to travel forwards after striking something, the explosions retaining the same speed as the bullets, something like Trinitro Blast from Mega Man Unlimited.

Melon Storm: Nothing like Tropical Hazard from Street Fighter X Mega Man; with Melon Storm you cause an earthquake that causes the entire top of the screen to spawn explosive melons that rain down at differing speeds. The melons pass through solid ground and only explode when they hit an enemy.

Shadow Pursuit: With this weapon equipped, you gain the ability to "slide" (in a dashing pose, ala Bass or Break Dash from Mega Man V) faster and further distances from anywhere, even in mid-air (though you're limited to two dashes in mid-air). You can boost yourself in any direction, in addition to invulnerability from almost anything except for instant-death traps while you dash. 

Seeker Beam: A beam that twists and turns to hit absolutely anything on-screen. It's a bit weak because of this, about the same strength as Alice's default weapon from Megamari (though a hair bit stronger since it's not a default weapon), but it has a lot of energy and is capable of doing lots of hits on a single enemy in rapid succession, even giving bosses only half the time of Mercy Invincibility if they get hit by it.

Pixel Shield: A shield composed of pixels rotating around you, press Fire to turn on the shield, press it again to turn it off. You reflect projectiles back at attackers, deal continuous damage to anything you lean against with the shield on, and you're even protected from stage hazards while the shield is on. It eats through energy a bit slower than Skull Barrier form Mega Man 4, but it's still somewhat quick.

Two more high-def sketches

Top: The assumed main villain of the Darkness side-story.

Bottom: The main female lead form the Oriental side-story.

Series Chronology.

From earliest to latest, this is the order in which the Aozora's Adventure games would take place.

1. Aozora's Adventure
2. Aozora's Adventure 64
3. Aozora's Adventure RPG
4. Rock-Aozora
5. Aozora's Adventure II/Rock-Aozora 2
6. Aozora's Adventure Gaiden
7. Aozora's Adventure 3D World
8. Aozora's Adventure III
9. Rock-Aozora 3
10. Aozora's Adventure 64 2

The colors on the titles are to show the three current main story arcs the games take place in.

Updates plus more concepts

Well, I know this blog doesn't get a lot of hits, but for those few that do, well good for you, because I got some minor announcements.

The artwork of Sharkane that I was working on since last week has been scrapped simply because I could not get the pose to work under any circumstances. My current solution is to make a pose that's a bit less dramatic (at the cost of getting swarmed by people saying "generic standing poses are crap") if I do choose to try drawing Sharkane again, or move onto another character.

Currently, finishing the Aozora's Adventure II cast is top priority, which is the group Sharkane is apart of. The group includes...

*Masayoshi (Done)
*Chinatsu (Done)
*Girou
*Saniko (Done)
*Fayato (Done)
*Kazuhikio (Done)
*Bachi
*Sharkane
*Grip
*Gnear
*Mignonette

I was also suggested by my good IRL friend Dominick to return to sketching concepts, which means a chance to finally give the Gaiden, Adventure III, and Rock III characters a real concept, especially Rodrigo who I only bothered drawing the head of since I didn't have a design for his lower body. However from all the stress I got trying to do the Sharkane pic I mentioned, I think I'll rest out a few days before I dive back into art.


Anyways a few concepts. These characters would most be prevalent in the series' spinoffs (which would include a kart-racing game and a tournament fighter) and wouldn't have any major appearance in the main series.

♂*The first character is the oldest of the four designs (around roughly Aozora's age) and is a mashup of two Disney characters: Jake from Jake and the Never Land Pirates and Francesco Bernoulli from Cars 2, alongside El Chavo from El Chavo del Ocho. He takes on the general template and color scheme of Jake, the personality of Francesco, and the nationality of El Chavo, making him a somewhat competitive Spanish pirate and easily the tamest of Aozora's main rivals (Masayoshi, Girou, Rodrigo, and him), since he is the only one not to be a full villain.

Thankfully, this character would not be what you'd call a racial stereotype. Despite originating from Mexico and having a Spanish accent, he's not portrayed in any form of negative light.

♂*The second design is based mostly on Takaharu Fukuroda from Kill la Kill. In this case, we have a Japanese schoolboy in his freshman year that competes in his school's boxing club (He plays fair, though). He has almost super strength and in combat against opponents outside the ring, he brings in massive metallic gloves that he wears, which have thrusters on the back ends for faster blows and doubly serve as miniature cannons that fire glove-shaped beams of energy.

♂*The third design is one huge shout-out to Gaara from what else but Naruto. He's a year older than design number 2 above (making him a high-school student in sophomore year) and resembles a somewhat young emo punk-rock Latin-American. Strapped to his back is a large, oversized plastic drinking bottle filled with sand and with many pieces of tape (of various kinds) and stickers on the surface (meant to mimic Gaara's own sand gourd, complete with a sticker that says "MUM", a parody of the "MWM" markings on the gourd). Using magic, this character can uncap the lid from his bottle (which is attached to the bottle of sand and freely manipulate it however he wants. Though he isn't able to control it to the extent of Gaara; for instance he cannot control chunks of sand larger than what his bottle can hold or else he tires out almost instantly. Personality-wise he's a bit of a grump and not exactly the social type.

♂*Design #4 is probably the most unique of the four characters. Here, we have a young, fearless and wild Russian boy with  bright cyan hair, who pilots a mini-mecha with the main body resembling a blue colorization of Dark Man 1 from Mega Man 5. with a pilot's seat in the body's "head" (which is fully exposed, therefore you can see the driver). Much like Design #1 above, he is not portrayed as a stereotype of his nationality. The only thing that would hint at him being Russian would be his ascent and the Russian text present on his mecha.

The Roast and Frost Elites in detal

-Copied from my dA.-

I dunno why I'm having a bit of a trouble with writing this, considering it's something related to my own projects.

With that said, anyone that has been sticking around probably knows of my intentions for Aozora's Adventure III, the third main story of my Aozora's Adventure series. Though no designs of them have surfaced, I know pretty well how some of them (including the Aozora's Adventure Gaiden group) would look.

What's primarily stopping me of actually getting out and drawing these characters is that there's only about one or two specific parts of that character that I can indeed say is complete, with the other parts either being extremely simple, nonexistent at all, or too similar to the inspiration(s) of that character. This is what's stopping me from working on Rodrigo, or any other "boss character" from Gaiden or III.

The intended looks for the Gaiden guys are detailed in a blogpost I made a year and a half ago.

http://aozorasadventure.blogspot.com/2013/04/meet-villains-of-aozoras-adventure.html

The III cast is much less incomplete, since I'm getting too sidetracked from actually developing them and imagining their designs to finding good names and asking around for people I could hire to draw up the concept, and from there I would draw the artwork. Going on a brief description of each boss would be tricky, but I'll try to sum it up as best as I can.

♂Roast # 1: A somewhat flamboyant/cocky blonde pyroknesis with modernized ancient greek/rome-inspired clothing, and angel wings on his back. Currently has the filler name "Icarus Man".

♂Roast # 2: A primarily white-colored armored knight that's javelin/lance themed; He has a large lance that's curved outwards like a needle built on his right arm, with a small opening on the tip to allow him to shoot fire out of the lance. His helmet also has a lance theme, with a long, triangle-shaped visor pointing outwards (but a standard, solid-color mouthguard) and a bushy red feather on the top. A shield is held by his left hand. He currently has "Joust Man" as his filler name.

♂Roast # 3: Think Toriko from the series of the same name armed out with bulky, heavy-duty black armor with loads of weaponry built into the armor, similar to Mega Man's Napalm Man.

♀Roast # 4: The only female of the Roast Elites, meant to be themed around a South American festival/carnival dancer with bright colors. She also has slightly darker skin than the other members.

♂Roast Leader: Think Tsumugu Kinagase and to a certain extent Ira Gamagori from Kill la Kill merged together and redesigned around a volcanic theme, with the same type of black armor Roast Elite # 3 has but designed to be volcano themed instead of weaponry-themed. He currently has the filler name "Volcano Man".

♂Frost # 1: A boy in his early teenage years (13-14ish) with spiky black hair with light blue highlights and somewhat wild blue/cyan/sky blue clothing.

The Frost Elites will have to come at a later date as they're very much nonexistent design-wise at this moment.

If anyone feels generous enough and wants to contribute, by all means go ahead. I wouldn't force it.

Aozora's Adventure: Darkness Concept references.

This is mostly for anyone that wants to help build up the roster for Aozora's Adventure: Darkness, aka the side-story focusing on Dedrick in a more dark/punk/goth setting/universe.

And yes, that is A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Signs inspirations you're seeing pictured, along with a some Robot Chicken and Son of the Mask (again yes, THAT movie.., anything to give a good or a half-descent design from a shitty movie some love).

Several High-Quality sketches

These three are characters that I seemingly forgotten about since I first designed them back in 2011/2012.

From top to bottom they are

*One of the antagonists of the Darkness side story, using Wolverine-style claws to attack.

*A character first appearing in Aozora's Adventure Gaiden, assisting Aozora during his flight to North Africa. He is very similar to Toshi, though while Toshi is more into electronics, this character is more of a basic builder.

*A character from Aozora's Adventure RPG that joins the player some time after Jirokichi joins the party. She specializes in magic-based attacks and is capable of powering up allies, healing them, and reviving them after they are defeated.

Aozora's Adventure III

As weird as it may seem, yes I've decided to launch the third arc in the Aozora's Adventure series, consisting of Aozora's Adventure III, Aozora's Adventure 64 2: Kurayami Strikes Back, and Rock-Aozora III. This post will be based on Aozora's Adventure III.

For both Aozora's Adventure III and Rock Aozora III, the two "games" would put their focus on a mysterious character known as Jigoku, who is very much intended to be an opposite of Aozora (as shown if you directly translate their name's meanings: Aozora = Sky, Jigoku = Hell, which is usually located opposite of the Sky.), However long before the events of the "games", Aozora and Jigoku meet and become good friends.

Jigoku can easily be described as being mostly black and red with a very punk-esque appearance. His hair is standard black hair with red highlights at the tips, and he wears a leather jacket. He was made to resemble Red Mist from the first Kick Ass film, but with a more casual appearance.
Remember Sunset Shimmer from My Little Pony: Equestria Girls? Well you can think as of her being the MLP equivalent of my series' Jigoku,, just like how you can say Aozora is to Twilight Sparkle.
Or if you really want to scrape the bottom of the barrel, Justice Man from the Mega Man fan game "Mega Man Rock Force" is to Jigoku while Mega Man is to Aozora.

One day as Aozora is heading to his place of education, he meets up with Jigoku, announcing that he had something to tell Aozora on the rooftops of the school. So Aozora rushes in to hear Jigoku's story, only for Jigoku to get stunned out of nowhere, picked up by a giant rocket-powered robot with no legs (yeah mecha are still a thing) and beamed away to an as-of-yet un-revealved location. Aozora, joined by Satoru and Zik, battle the giant robot atop the roof of the school and set out to find Jigoku.

What the main heroes don't realize is that Jigoku has been faking his friendship with Aozora, as Jigoku is considered an undercover spy for a team of five known only as "The Roast Crew", a team looking to engulf Japan into an endless sea of fire, and from there build their own empire which they will rule and conquer other territories with. While not all of them are strictly pyrokinesis users, each member has some form of attack that utilities fire. Going by standard Mega Man logic of calling each one "[name] Man/Woman" until I give them proper names, here's a brief listing of the team's main members, who will serve as the main world bosses, the Roast Elites, of the first five zones (worlds) in Aozora's Adventure III:

*Icarus Man
*Joust Man
*???
*???
*Volcano Man

After defeating all five, Aozora further searches the Roast Crew's HQ to locate Jigoku. Upon reaching Jigoku, he and Aozora engage in a heated battle, ultimately leaving Jigoku wounded and unconscious on the floor. Aozora proceeds to demand answers, but Jigoku is unable to respond, as he lies on the groung face-first. The Roast Elites barge in and reveal the truth. The Roast Gang had only wanted to assemble an army in Japan in order to send a message and combat their rivals and greater evil "The Frost Gang", whom outnumber the Roast Gang by extreme numbers. As they go to retrieve Jigoku, the Roast Crew HQ instantly becomes under attack by the Frost Gang, easily defeating the entire Roast Crew minus Jigoku, who was dropped after two of the Roast Elites failed to escort Jigoku in time, leading to Jigoku's still-unconsious body being abducted by several shadowy figures.

The sixth through ninth Zones of the game are based around Aozora and company battling through the Frost Gang and their own "Frost Elites". Much like the Roast Elites, the Frost Elites are not always based on ice or freezing, but they all have some form of attack that involves low temperature:

*???
*???
*???
*Avalanche Man
(Yes I did play Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.)

Eventually after fending off Avalanche Man, Jigoku is revealed to be alive, now ice-blue in color and with many artificial enhancements to his body, battles Aozora once again and as expected, is defeated. In his (assumed) dying words, he apologizes to Aozora for what he had to go through because of him and his team's actions and intents. Suddenly, a projection of longtime series villain Joker appears in the sky, announcing that he was the one that founded the Frost Gang, and challenges Aozora and his allies to risk their lives and try to stop him in the newly-created Joker's Castle 3.

Along the way, Aozora and his friends might come across several distant areas that visiting is optional (much like Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii), and includes additional foes that may be challenged.

*Maple Woman
*???
*Titan Man
*Spectrum Man
*Atomic Man

Remember how the main Aozora's Adventure series of "games" would use Mario-centric power ups?
Well they're back for  the third "game", but I decided to try something different, Make power ups that transform characters into appearances based on specific anime series, as well as acquire powers based on the series they pay homage to. For instance, collecting a "Soul Mask" dons the user in an appearance alike a Soul Reaper from the Bleach series, allowing the user to swing bladed weapons that emit some form of razor beam that travels ahead. Then there's the "Stand Mushroom", which radically alters the outfit of the user into something like you'd see in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, complete with giving the user a "Stand" that battles alongside the user. I was also thinking of a "Zodiac" form based on Saint Seiya.

Here you can find the concept designs I commissioned for both Soul Aozora and Stand Aozora.

I repeat, I'll make these games someday before I die, but I'd really like to learn programing or find a team that I could hire to help me make a freeware title!