Nineteenth Released Maps- Shadow Heart&Shadow Heart Solo

[VGsatomi]

If there was one piece of work that I would use to showcase my mapping career, this would be it. Never before have I put so much into a map. Many things inspired this map; first was Ninja vs Samurai with its unique melee action that allowed players to manually dodge enemy attacks. I decided to make a map with that style of fighting, only bigger. Second was the Sega Saturn game “Guardian Heroes,” with its unique cast of colorful characters taking on an empire and eventually gods. My map reminded me of that game much while I was making it. Third was the releasing of Black Stan’s excellent Japanese feudal era models which was the icing on the cake. They were indescribably perfect for my map’s theme.

As usual, I put most of the emphases at first into the terrain. In my steps of map making that is the first thing to get done. I used many custom models to help spice it up, namely the trees and the buildings. I used a modified village summer tileset. At the time I thought it was an interesting idea, but I found a text to speech website where I was able to make some hokey quality voices for some of the cinimatics. The male voices turned out acceptable, but the female (Aya) voice didn’t turn out that great, but it was the first map I made that had speech in it, so I was content. I ended up taking them out eventually to help reduce file size, however.

The multiplayer version was simply a low file size version with shorter gameplay, multiplayer compatibility, less story, more arcade action oriented with smaller variety in models, music, enemies, ect. No cinimatics or the such, just straightforward gameplay. Upon finishing the multiplayer map, I then expanded it into a solo-only map with a bloated file size of goodies.

The solo version it much more story oriented, with a lengthily into that sets the stage and the unfolding story during gameplay. Various cut scenes stop the action to explain various things. I also added in a much larger variety of models, music and sound. During one of the updates, the size of the map was increased by 50% and divided into 2 chapters. The map now takes about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to complete. Actual gameplay has Aya running around and cutting down large numbers of enemy ninjas. The best way to fight is to have your finger on the “S” key and just stop whenever you are ready to swing and let Aya passively acquire the enemy. It saves having to click on individual enemies each time you want to attack. The gamplay may get a little repetitious after a while, but I dunno….I never seem to get bored of it. Needless to say this is another all-female themed map.

This is one of the top 5 maps I am most proud of.

You can try our SH here:
http://www.wc3sear.ch/index.php?p=Maps&ID=6512&sid=c221007c733328cb420a361164b06197 (multiplayer)
http://www.wc3sear.ch/index.php?p=Maps&ID=6793&sid=c221007c733328cb420a361164b06197 (solo)

 

[VGsatomi]

Here is the whole story that takes place during the map, including all the significant sequence of events. It may contain some spoilers.

Hundreds of years ago in Japan, there was an old man who was raising a son. However, the son was rather unusual. He was hideously in appearance due to birth defect. The man was the last in a long bloodline, so it was essential for him and his son to carry on the bloodline. However with his son's appearance, finding a wife for him would be impossible. It was then that he decided to devise a special curse, one that would ensure his son eventually got a wife. The curse was designed to infect women and change their bodies so that they would bore only female children, and that their offspring would then in turn only give birth to female children and so on, with the exception of those conceived by his son. The curse would also stop the aging of any girl once she reached marriageable age, leaving them eternally young and beautiful. The first woman to be targeted by the curse was a young woman named "Makiko". She was the most beautiful girl in the land. The curse worked and all of Makiko's children were born female. The man's intention was to fill the land with so many pretty girls that any one of them desiring marriage would eventually have to marry his son due to lack of supply of marriageable men. After a generation, the land was abundant with young and beautiful girls- just as the man had hoped for.

However, with the male population repeatedly suffering due to constant war. That, combined with only girls being born due to the "Makiko Curse", this quickly lead to a population crisis. A law was passed by the samurai that any girl born with the curse or any woman seen resembling Makiko (a sign that they had the curse) were to be killed on sight. This lead to a terrible slaughter. Those who survived fled to the secluded mountains. Over the generations, their numbers grew as quickly as their hatred did. They trained to fight and to kill by the bloodthirsty Lady Akuza. Lady Akuza then formed the "Shadow Heart" clan and organized it into a standing army, posed to reclaim the lands the woman lost and to extract revenge on those who exiled them. Makiko herself disappeared shortly after this began and decided to hide among a neighboring mountain range, where she did everything she could to spread the curse. Her aim was to make every individual in Japan infected with the curse so that no more perverted men like the one that cursed her would ever exist again, and that Japan would then be ruled by only women with eternal lives.

Unknowing the what Makiko was doing, The hatred growing among the clan for the outside world gained the attention of Yohko, a half demon under the mind control influence of Yaksha, the goddess of war. Yohko and Akuza formed a pact that would eventually lead to the summoning of Yaksha to the realm of mortal- to Earth. Under Yaksha's seemingly limitless magic over women, she rendered the Shadow Heart troops invulnerable against attacks by men- whether they be swords or arrows alike.

Ancient texts described that a cure for any curse could be obtained by capturing shrines in all of the holy cities. The desire of every Shadow Heart member was to resume a normal life and raise a normal family, free of the curse that binded them. They quickly mobilized with the goal of seizing those cities. This was during the peak of the fighting during the feudal era, so battles were frequently waged all across the country. During this peak, the Shadow Heart army descended form the mountains and dominated every battlefield. Army after army were completely destroyed without the loss of even a single Shadow Heart soldier. One Shadow Heart woman was single handedly capable of wiping out entire battalions. Due to such flawless victories, the clan was able to secure the capital of Edo in only a week. Yaksha intended to rule Japan and use it as a base of operations in advancing into and conquering the rest of the world, using the Shadow Heart as her tools.

Meanwhile, Makiko herself had become nothing much more then a walking corpse. She had become the very source and sustainment of the curse.

The Samurai and other warlords were greatly alarmed by trhe Shadow Heart's war progress. Their very power and rules had become threatened almost overnight by this new menace. One warlord, Lord Masamune, sent a spy named "Mayumi" to infiltrate the Shadow Heart. The infiltration was successful and Mayumi provided Masamune with a great deal of information about the clan, including who their leaders were, what their soldier strengths were, what their combat capabilities were, and where the army currently occupied at any given time. However, her most important piece of information was that Yaksha, being a female god, could not protect her troops from attacks wielded by other females. Word got out and the warlords scoured the land for combat-competent females that weren't already in the Shadow Heart. Masamune had one capable female assassin who loyally served under him. Her name was "Aya," a girl with blood ties to the west. Masamune sent her on a mission to eliminate Yaksha before his rule was threatened by the advancing Shadow Heart army. Aya has served for many years, and was wanting to retire from the business of killing. Lord Masamune agreed that she could leave the clan to live a normal life- on top of a heap of financial rewards, if she completed her mission.

However, during that time Mayumi's cover was blown, and she was captured by her enemies. This distressed Masamune and added that Aya should also rescue her during the course of her mission. This did not stop Mayumi's sister, Natsumi, from venturing out to save her as well. Mayumi's last bit of information the discovered before she was caught was where Yaksha would be staying for the night in the outskirts of occupied Edo...in an area where the troop concentration would be the lightest. There were 20,000 combatants in the Shadow Heart army and another 20,000 noncombatants in support of it. The area would have not much more then 2000 at the time of Yaksha's stay. It was Aya's perfect opportunity to carry out her mission.

Aya successfully recaptured the outskirts, liberating the city and freeing Mayumi. She succeeded in slaying Yohko, Akuza, many of their cohorts including Hitomi, one of the most skilled female mercenaries in the land, the Shadow Heart treasurer, Ayane, which effectively crippled the Shadow's Hearts war effort, and many of the key commanders. The Clan members in the area attempted to make an escape, using a mountain shrine as a neutral sanctuary, but their plans were foiled as Mayumi and Natsumi joined forces with Aya. Yaksha was defeated shortly after, putting a stop to the Shadow Heart military threat.

Makiko did not enjoy the news. The Shadow Heart army had surrendered almost immediately after the diminishing of their protective magic. But the curse was far from gone. One night, about a week after the fall of Yaksha and the surrender of the Shadow Heart, Aya sensed an evil presence coming from a corrupted forest. Upon venturing into it, she met Makiko, who tied to convince Aya to join her side so that they could fight against all the arrogant men who started all the wars and caused all the suffering, including the inner struggle Aya was suffering from all the souls of the people she killed who haunted her. Aya agreed that she was not fond of Masamune, but she declined, and fought and killed Makiko in one last, climatic battle. The curse died along with Makiko, lifting it off all the other infected women. The Shadow Heart had then disbanded. Peace had finally been restored across the land, but Aya has essentially become lost in the process. She decides to go on a journey to purify herself from all the death around her that stained her very soul.