Zephyr Project (Pre-Alpha Demo)

Zephyr Project (Working Title) is a 3D ARPG with rogue-lite gameplay elements, taking inspiration from PS2-era classics such as Dark Cloud and Final Fantasy, as well as narrative influence from classic prose and modern media.

This early pre-alpha demo sees you control Princess Eiren as she flees her city of Eivune through the secret escape tunnel in the city's giant walls used to house steam powered infrastructure and as storage for merchants and more affluent citizens. The walls were originally built for the royal family to escape quickly in case of siege. However recently engineers and merchants have observed an increase in monsters born of corrupt magics within the walls, and Eiren will need to brave these monsters as she make her way out of the city.

Key Features:

• Explore the bustling city of Eivune with its steampunk aesthetic.
• Battle through 5 large procedurally generated floors in gripping dungeon crawling action.
• Find and level up to stronger weapons, giving you the tactical advantage against the monsters.
• Make use of an old cart system, leading to backrooms where merchants stored valuable goods.
• Beautiful cel-shaded visuals.

Planned Features:

This is only a very small glimpse of the dark fantasy epic that we have planned as the finished game. This pre-alpha demo showcases gameplay from the game's first chapter and is very much subject to change, in the final game we have some of the following things planned (and much more):

• An Action RPG, with a deeply personal character driven narrative on a cosmic scale.
• A vast roster of playable characters, with a variety of different classes and play styles.
• Multiple weapon types and masteries, and a party system allowing for countless combinations.
• Huge weapon trees and level up options for a wide variety of different characters and play-styles.
• A dark narrative tied to the themes of morality, life/death, and complex shades of grey in-between.
• A "choose your own adventure" system where decisions made can have long term consequences, potentially through multiple playthroughs.
• An in-depth city building mechanic that is intimately tied to the story and the decisions you make throughout. 

Team:

We are a small hobbyist team with no professional game-dev experience, comprising of only a few people, spread across different parts of the globe (primarily meeting online). All of us united by our passion for Dark Cloud and other classic PS2-era RPG's.

This Demo has been in production for roughly three years (very on and off around real life responsibilities), it is effectively a polished prototype and we are very much looking forward to devloping it further into the next phase of production.

We are looking to work with more passionate individuals to join our team and help us build the game (this is an entirely hobbyist production, so there will be no compensation) , so if that sounds like something you'd be interested in then please send us an email at zephyrstudio2020@gmail.com.