Karma Flow 2 - Steel Skin

It is highly recommended to play and complete the first Karma Flow before reading the "Synopsis" and "Characters" sections of the sequel (as those contain heavy spoilers)!

The first chapter is available >> here! <<

Most of the game's resources are still "place-holders". All of the non original resources belong to their rightful owners.

- Introduction -

After almost two years since the release of the first game (and some months after its English release), I'm ready to start talking about its sequel which is currently in development, Steel Skin.

Karma Flow was developed for a Short Game Contest held, in 2015, by an Italian community. It was my chance to prove that I could do something original and fresh with RPG Maker 2003. During that time I tried to improve my drawing skills, pixel art skills and programming skills in order to reach a new level and that was something that required a lot of time and efforts. To sum it up, it proved to be hard and I had a time limit so I had to cut some gameplay's features and make some needed adjustments to the overall experience. I managed to release the game, eventually, but even if it was complete and playable, it was still a bit far from the original concept.

There was still a lot of unexpressed potential.
With this second chapter, I want to reach that potential.

Karma Flow 2 - Steel Skin is an Open-Stealth game that takes place in a noir setting. It allows the player to carry out the mission however he sees fit. There's always more than one way to reach a certain goal.
Most of the game's missions require the player to assassinate a given target. The player can decide when, where and how to kill the target. However, KF2 will feature a lot of variety and there will be missions with different kind of objectives to complete.

Freedom of movement is the key. I want to create something unique with high replayability in order for players to always find something new to do.

Karma Flow 2 will also feature an intricate and mature plot following the ending of the first one. It will put much more emphasis on Florien Kealborn and her torments while introducing new and unique characters.

It's an ambitious goal, but I care about this game a lot and I really want to do my best and deliver a product worthy of your time.

Let's cut to the chase and talk about the game, now!

- List of planned features (expect heavy updates here) -

• Open-Stealth game with free-roaming elements and many ways to tackle missions.

• Two playable characters, Florien Kealborn and Stephanie Jaycoski (see "Characters" section).

• An intricate and mature plot that takes place in a noir setting.

• Bigger maps, with more life, variety and improved shading.

• Improved performance.

• More variety when it comes to missions and kill methods.

• Much more value than the first game.

• Illustrations for important cutscenes.

I will try to avoid lengthy cutscenes as much as I can. The Free-roaming portion of the game will have lots of optional dialogue if the player is interested in knowing more about the game's lore.

- Gameplay -

Karma Flow 2 - Steel Skin will be a significant improvement over the first game and it will be much closer to the original concept I had in mind for the game.
I will talk about the core of the game, the same one the first title had.

Karma Flow 2 is an Open-Stealth game which offers a lot of freedom to the player. You can decide how to handle the mission, is all up to you. Most of your tasks, since Flo's an assassin, involve killing someone and you can decide when, how and where to do it. There's a day and night cycle, and the target has a schedule you'll have to try to understand in order to catch him off guard, ambush him and then murder him.

There's one big handicap, though: the Karma.
This Karma is a strange phenomenon which punishes whoever kills someone. You lose a certain amount of Karma Points, the game's life points, if you kill someone directly.

You'll have to do indirect kills in order to avoid being detected by the Karma.
Car accidents, ricocheting bullets, placing land mines... you have to orchestrate a murder that will seem like an accident in order to kill someone without being punished.

All of this will affect your overall score, as there will be both an offline and an online ranking system like the first game.

This time, though, in Karma Flow 2, missions will have much more variety. It will not always about killing target, but also about stealing information/stealing certain documents or project/rescue important characters and more.
The game will also feature many more kill methods and a variety of new equipments that Flo and Steph can purchase.

Karma Flow 2 will feature a second playable character, Stephanie "Sneaky Girl" Jaycoski.

Her gameplay will differ from Flo's. They will somehow complement each other.

For example, let's say we have a mission when Flo has to kill a certain someone. The player can send Steph on Support Missions first in order to destroy enemy's supplies or steal certain objects that will help Flo with her main task.

That's what Support Missions are. Each Main Mission will feature a certain number of Support Missions that, if executed well, will make things much easier in that specific Main Mission.

It may also be the other way around. Steph might have a Main task to perform, and player can send Flo to kill certain people in order to help Stephanie.

Steph is not an assassin, so she can't kill anyone, but she's a pro when it comes to sneaking and "becoming invisible". She's useful when patrolling certain areas.

More details will come later on.

Beside Main Missions and Support Missions, there will also be Side Missions. In the first Karma Flow, side missions could be found and carried on inside specific Main Missions. This time, they can be found in the Free-Roaming portion of the game, by talking with specific NPCs or things like that and they will be missions of their own.

The Free-roaming portion will also contain a lot of NPCs and collectibles that will help shaping up the game's lore. This time, I want to store some of the lore and interaction between characters in "optional portions" of the game, in order to avoid too many lenghty cutscenes.

- Synopsis -

After a devastating war, Rolsara and its country Hardnam heavily relied on crime as a meaning to survive. Criminal activities became the main source of profit, the one thing that made the country survive the crisis.

However, a new and strange phenomenon started to spread across all of Hardnam after having made its first manifestation in the capital of Rolsara. No one knows exactly what it is.
The only things that is known is that it responds to the "eye for an eye" principle.

Killing means being killed.

This "anomaly" has been called Karma.

It's been a year since the death of Klerika Kealborn, Anabelle Wasel's doppelgänger, and the dismantlement of Old Major's Headquarters.

Florien Kealborn, a Meat Hunter who works for Old Major, is still tormented by her sister Klerika's death and her health is getting worse every day.

She's forced, in the meantime, to accept humble and unprofitable jobs in order to make a living for herself and her sister Marien.

In the meantime, the men belonging to the "Karma Patrol" group have grown in strength and are now considered a plague and an obstacle for all the criminals in the city. Many groups are starting to form alliances in order to deal with them and stop Duke Eathan and his expansion once and for all.

Eathan wants to use his Karma Patrols in order to give rise to a new world war that will crush all the other nations. This way, he'll make the country of Hardnam more powerful and free it from criminality in the process. In order to do it, he needs weapons and the "spark" that would make all of this happen.

Florien and the others, Chris Kaleido and Old Major, are waiting for a good opportunity to act and throw a wrench into Eathan's plan. The mysterious disappearance of Marty Rivers doesn't make things easier for them, as they can't contact Machinegun Kingdom's former suppliers anymore.

Because of the huge mistrust among the other criminal families, it has now become common practice to hire mercenaries belonging to a group named "Proxy" and use them as "delivery boys" in order to receive and send orders or steal information without attracting too much attention. The Proxy mercenaries are very well known among the criminals in Rolsara because they are really skillful and trustworthy.

A stroke of luck comes when Chris Kaleido finally manages to intercept the Proxy mercenary hired by the Eathan family: Stephanie Jaycoski, also known as "Sneaky Girl".

Sneaky Girl is one of the most capable and uncatchable Proxy criminal in all of Rolsara. Capturing her might help Florien Kealborn and her colleagues in their fight against the Karma Patrol, as she will surely hold key information regarding the biggest threat in the city of Rolsara.
What exactly is this bizarre phenomenon that kills criminals called "Karma"? Does she hold the answer to that? Or perhaps, does she hold information about Eathan's plans?

The hunt is on...

- Characters -

Florien Kealborn
Age: 25
Occupation: Meat Hunter of the Old Major Organization
Description: Considered to be, by herself mostly, one of the most lethal and talented Meat Hunter Rolsara has ever saw. She began working as a hired hitgirl for the Eathan family when she was only thirteen after her father Kenneth Kealborn's death by the end of the Wasel family. She had three sisters: Marien, Klerika and Klarice Kealborn. Last year, Florien had to kill her sister Klerika and her death still torments her. Even though she is an extremely good-looking and sensual female, she's a bit of a "tomboy". She is tough, egocentric, sarcastic and can be really cold and ruthless on the job. However she is friendly and caring towards her closest friends, which aren't a lot, mostly her former colleagues. She's a heavy smoker and usually drinks a lot. She is extremely agile and athletic.

Stephanie "Sneaky Girl" Jaycoski
Age: 19
Occupation: Proxy mercenary
Description: Stephanie is a rebellious teenager. She's talented, despite her age, and she possesses off the charts agility, cleverness and infiltration skills. She's one of the most skillful mercenary in all of Rolsara, no one ever managed to catch her during her numerous missions. Thanks to the reputation she has built over the year, she now carries on orders as a "delivery girl" for the Eathan family. She's not an assassin and doesn't want to become one. Her backstory is a mistery. No one knows what a Jaycoski family member is doing among the mercenaries.

Steel Skin
Age: ??
Occupation: Élite Karma Patrol
Description: This dangerous individual is currently known as "Steel Skin" because of his robotic arm and the fact that, despite all of his injuries, he's still doing his job in the field flawlessly and no one ever managed to take him down. Little else is known about the man. What's his purpose? What is known is that he commands a group of élite belonging to the Karma Patrol. He's subtle and a capable schemer. He's always very serious and composed, probably one of the few who haven't lost their minds because of the tortures.

{Concept Art - Work in progress}
Marien Kealborn
Age: 27
Occupation: Cop working at Dog Refuge's Police Department
Description: Marien is a kind girl always ready to give a helping hand. She's the only one of the Kealborn sisters who lived an honest life up until now. Marien graduated top of her class and she currently have an office job as a cop. She's working in a department established specifically for investigating cases of missing people hoping to find her lost sister Klerika Kealborn (unaware of the fact that she was killed by Florien during the attack on Old Major's HQ). She married Bennet Wasel and they had a daughter named Juno. She felt a strong resentment over Florien and the criminal life she lived (who took away her husband later on). An year after Ben's death, Mary convinced herself that her sister Flo changed and decided to let her live with her and help with her journey towards an honest life. She has a very strong bond with her sister Klarice, who helped her and their mother when they were in need.

Klarice Kealborn
Age: 31
Occupation: Owns a modelling agency called FashionSara
Description: Klarice is the oldest of the Kealborn sisters. She's a fashionable, sensuous and elegant girl, very obsessed with her looks. She's always one step ahead of everyone and she possess an innate charisma. After her father's death, she has taken upon herself to look after her sister Marien and their mother. She helped her sister carrying on her studies and finding a job. Klarice is helping her out financially as well. Just like Florien, she cares for her own family a lot. She also feels affection for Flo, despite their rivalry, and just like her she despises injustice a lot, even though she sees crime as the only way to help Marien out with her financial problems.

{Concept Art - Work in progress}
Chris Kaleido
Age: 27
Occupation: Former member of the Old Major Organization
Description: Chris was a brilliant Project Engineer and worked for a very important company before it had to be closed due to Rolsara's economical crisis. He ended up without a job and without any money as he had to spend most of his fortune to help her mother overcome severe illness. She eventually died. Chris decided to use his very last foundings to create a small criminal activity and began his career as an hacker, hacking bank accounts and security devices mostly. He eventually draw Don Borkus' attention, which offered him a job in his crime family. Soon after, he left the family and joined the Old Major Organization instead. He was the "mind" behind the Organization, helping Florien and the other hired hits with their preparations before a murder. Chris is a very intelligent and composed individual and always manages to make rational decisions in no time. He, however, lacks the "ruthlessness" and all the other "qualities" that are standard among hired guns, so he never does any "field works" and always stays behind the scenes. He has a really deep friendly relationship with Flo, and respects Old Major a lot. He's a smoker, just like Flo, although not as an heavy smoker as her.

Old Major
Age: 64
Occupation: Former leader of the Old Major Organization
Description: A lot can be said about Old Major, from his many successes in the underworld business to the many allies he made among the other crime families. But there is little to none explanation about his personal info and his past. He was the leader of the well-known Old Major Organization. Most of the time he is silent and speaks only if it is absolutely necessary. Florien and Chris always have a hard time remembering the last time he smiled or showed any kind of emotion. He appreciates Chris' professionalism a lot but despises Florien's careless and unrespectful behaviour, although he simply tries to let it slide. He dreams of expanding his organization and make it the most wanted service for criminals in need.

Marty Rivers
Age: 31
Occupation: Former Machinegun Kingdom's celebrity spokesperson
Description: Everyone knows Marty Rivers! And everyone knows Machinegun Kingdom, the number one weapons and other kind of equipment supplier in all of Rolsara. Marty served as Machinegun Kingdom's celebrity spokesperson, after some time spent as a salesman for the company (one of the best), and always appeared in all of its commercials along with his girls who he refers to as his "Sexorgeous Chicks". With the manifestation of the Karma, most criminal activities ceased to exist aswell as Machinegun Kingdom, resulting in Marty Rivers losing his job. Marty's a very annoying and irritating kind of guy, always going nuts when surrounded by women. He was very popular among Machinegun Kingdom's followers because of his ridicolous and funny gags, even though he's convinced that his charm made him popular. He has a lot of connections among criminals and suppliers. After last year's events, Marty disappeared out of the blue and no one knows where is he and what he's up to these days.

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