Power Master 1: A Strange Journey

Template:InfoboxGamesPower Master 1: A Strange Journey is the first game in the Power Master Series, as signified by the number in the title.

The game was released through the itch.io site on March 18th, 2016 for Windows PCs. It is currently available for free, and the creator has stated that it will remain that way. A demo was released before the main game on September 2nd, 2015.

Plot

The story takes place a thousand years after the defeat of the "Fallen Guardian," Exitilus. After defeating Hypnock, it is revealed by the Mysterious Man that Exitilus has returned in someway. It's up to the descendant of the original heroes to set out and stop Exitilus from taking over the world.

Main Characters

See also: List of Characters in Power Master 1: A Strange Journey

The player can choose between four different characters before starting the game. Who they chose will change the story slightly. These are the characters the player can choose from:

• Stephan: The "Boy 1" option. Cannot use magic, so he relies mainly on offensive tactics. Uses swords, shields, bows, and axes.
  

  Stephan
• Jennifer: The "Girl 1" option. The quickest in the game and has both offensive and status inducing/recovery skills. Uses swords, shields, bows, and magic.
• Hamilton: The "Boy 2" option. The strongest in the game and is capable of wielding two weapons instead of one. Uses swords, axes, and magic.
• Helen: The "Girl 2" option. Not the strongest character, so she relies mainly on defensive and helpful skills. Uses whips, magic, bows, and shields.

(Info taken from the itch.io site)

If the player chooses to play as anyone else but Stephan, Stephan will fill the role of the chosen player. For example, if the player chooses Jennifer, Stephan will fill her spot in Bora as the Warrior.

After the player chooses their character, they have the option to rename them. When they find the other characters in the game, they can rename them then as well.

Locations

See: List of Locations in Power Master 1: A Strange Journey

Development

Power Master 1's initial planning started in 2009. It has been drawn and redrawn several times before being finalized in it's current notebook form. The actual development of the game started in 2014, using the Unity 3D engine. It started using the RPG Maker VX Ace program in April of 2015 after Alex claimed the Unity program to be "too difficult."

Alex first began making games as far back as 2002, using a Super Mario action figure he got in a Wendy's kids meal. He played with it, often forming his own levels in the vein of Super Mario 64, which he claims served as a big inspiration for his game. In 2007, he started drawing out games based on Nintendo's properties, such as Mario, Zelda, Fire Emblem, and Pokemon. Only the Mario and Zelda notebooks are still around, with Fire Emblem's and Pokemon's being lost. In 2008, he started planning a game called Dot's World, but soon moved on to start building Power Master.

The original name of the Power Master Series as a whole was going to be called "Tales of the Unknown Land." Alex omitted the "Tales of" part to avoid conflicting with Atlus's "Tales of" series. Then, his brother claimed to have a story called "The Unknown Universe," so for a while, Alex had no name for his game. The paper listing the items for Power Master 1 still says "TUL," the abbreviation for "The Unknown Land."

As stated earlier, development on the current game started in April of 2015 for the RPG Maker VX Ace program. Said program was bought for him by his aunt, Pam. Alex teamed up with a few people to help create the game. One being his brother, Geoffrey "Aaron" Bodine, who provided most of the custom battlers in the game. Edgar Gobo (who gave Alex permission to use his original character, Marceus, in the game) originally was going to provide the character artwork for the game as well as a possible Portuguese translation. Both of them have since left the main development (with Geoffrey leaving to focus his time on his "Legends End" stories), but Alex said this is a good thing and allowed him to focus more on the game himself and get his thoughts together.

Power Master 1 was originally going to launch on March 26th, 2016, but was pushed forward to March 18th due to things progressing faster than he thought.

Reviews

According to Alex, the game has received mostly positive reviews and was downloaded 100 times by May 7th.

Issues and Updates

Upon release, a game-crashing compiler error occurred when players tried to leave the town of Fora, either by walking out or using the Gem to warp out. He states that the main overworld of Moneo was too large for the game to render the bitmap correctly. To fix the problem, he included the main data for the game, which allows the game to render the overworld, but also allows players to look through the game files.

Update v1.1

• Fixed bug where Moneo does not appear
• Included the RPG Maker VX Ace project data
• Removed unspecified unneeded and unused graphics/events/music
• Various unspecified cosmetic changes