Yay competition!

always a need for one more serious indie developer =D

good luck =D

Very cool, good luck with the project as I'm sure that it will be very successful. I just read through your design document (skimed some parts, and deeply ingested others) and thought that it was very straightfoward, although obviously not complete. As such, my next comment may be something that has been suggested or brought up previously that you may have chosen to leave unresolved, or it just hasn't made into the design document at this point. Either way you clearly have a great understanding of literary works and I only hope that my suggestions may help generate some sort of productive tangent of thought for you.

While reading through your document, there was a large gap in explanation of the back story for the world. Clearly the different races were explained, and in great detail, but what I didn't see was an explanation of the relationships of each race. Normally for a game such as an adventure, rts, or any other game that doesn't depend so much on a story driven plot, I wouldn't consider this an issue, but for an rpg, I think this aspect is vital. Some things were expressed in the document as suggestions for origins of the races themselves, and I know that development is a long process, but the origin of the races themselves isn't really a concern, rather the relationships of each culture as a totalistic whole. It seems that in the design each race lives rather isolated lives from one another.

Even in our own world, I realize that cultural biast exist from the materilistic, ignorant, self serving impression foriegn cultures may have about Americans, to the Stern Family oriented, hardworking, cultural perception of say the Japanesse culture. But how did these perceptions and cultural stereotypes come about? What major historical events shaped this world into what it has become? What things today propogate the sterotypical views of the magicals for the techno's?

Also, even with isolated cultures, how can different races on the same continent not be more interwoven? (These points may not be important to the main story line, but I believe used in subplots, and or quests they would help build a more believable world, which should be the goal of any good rpg.) By this, I'm trying to convey the spectrum of liberal vs conservative individuals, as it pertains to cultural values and mores. I mean sure, the major norm of each culture might have a sterotypic existence, but what about those that choose to live outside the norms? Subcultures of the major cultures. I believe that even if these races are the product of many years of cross cultural breeding and influences, that there would still be this process going on.

At any rate, I just bring up these points , although rather sloppily, as they were just areas that I didn't really see investigated or explained in the design document. THis more so has been a help for me as I'm currently in the process of some major redesigns of my own. Thanks, and good luck.

It's good to read that Xenallure is still alive and kicking. It will be great to see the world take shape!