Aptos Adventures

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Aptos Adventures is a console-style role playing game made by Nick McKay/Tobin Industries using RPG Maker 2003 for PC. It is loosely based on his high school and life. Work on the game began around 2001, originally using RPG Maker 2000.

Contents 1 Characters 2 Story 3 Game play 4 Locations 5 Trivia 6 External links

[edit] Characters

Playable Characters
Nick: The main character of the game.
Cooper: Nick's twin brother.
Brett: Nick's friend, hobbies include puppetry and wheelchairs.
Ethan: Nick's friend, a rogue Jewjitsu Ninja.
Satchel: Nick and Cooper's Dog. A hidden character.
Riley: Nick's friend, Brett's long lost brother. A hidden character.
Tobin: A mysterious alien whose real name is not pronouncable in the English language.
Important Non Player Characters
White Question Mark Guy: Leader of the Question Mark People.
Question Mark People: A mysterious race that dwells and draws energy from ? Canyon.
Alex M: A nerdy kid who helps the party by selling them items, wherever they may go.
Crazy Nerd: Gives advice about the game, sometimes breaks the fourth wall.
Dylan: Nick's friend.
Alex R: Nick's friend and Dylan's neighbor.
Katy: Alex R's girlfriend.
Recurring Non Player Characters
Pinoy: An exchange student from Germany.
Villans
Goobindos: An alien who's technology grants Welshbon superhuman powers.
Welshbon: An evil ex-PCS (Pacific Collegiate School) physics teacher hell-bent on revenge.
The Creator: An omnipotent being in cahoots with Goobindos and Welshbon.
Cody: An unsanitary neighbor of Dylan and Alex that holds the party prisoner in chapter 4.

[edit] Story

Non-Spoiler Edition:
2 years ago, during finals, PCS (Pacific Collegiate School) caught on fire and burned to the ground under mysterious circumstances. Although Cooper was blamed for the incident, he doesn't remember starting the fire. Now, an evil teacher named Welshbon is out for blood. Nick wakes up from a strange dream and notices Cooper is missing. Upstairs he finds a letter from Welshbon that says his family has been kidnapped. Not knowing where to start looking, Nick heads to school (Aptos High School). Nick's search takes him across the Santa Cruz Archipelago, a chain of islands in the California region. Along his journey he will befriend allies and make powerful enemies.



*Spoiler Alert*







Chapters:
The game is divided into 8 chapters:
Chapter 1: Don't be late on the first day!
Chapter 2: The adventure begins!
Chapter 3: Trouble in Aptos!
Chapter 4: Escape from Cody's dungeon!
Chapter 5: The search for the Brett puppet pieces!
Chapter 6: Trouble on Tobinia!
Chapter 7: Into Alex's Lego drawer we go!
Chapter 8: Back to school: the final battle!

[edit] Game play

Being a console-style RPG, Aptos Adventures consists of the usual components of field and battle screens, as well as a handful of mini games.
Field Screen
Aptos Adventures consists of the usual dungeon/town exploration seen in RPGs. The menu is brought up using the X or escape keys, which allows the player to select the main menu, change party members, or change suits. Enemies typically move toward the hero or along a set path. All enemies can be seen on screen and avoided, rather than using a random encounter system. Once the player escapes from a battle, all enemies flash white and are rendered unconscious for 2 seconds, allowing the player to make an escape on the field screen.

Battle System
Aptos Adventures uses the default battle system of RPG Maker 2003. It is similar to the 2D Final Fantasy iterations and early '90s Square RPGs that use the Active Time Battle System. Characters learn abilities at set levels. Each character has sets of special attacks to unleash. Nick uses pencil attacks, cooper uses gun and gluegun attacks, Ethan uses Jewish attacks, Brett uses wheelchair attacks, Satchel uses bark attacks, Tobin uses UFO attacks, and Riley uses snowboard attacks. When Nick and Cooper are in the party together, regardless or not if one of them is dead, they can use Twin attacks to do damage to all enemies.

Action Battles
Almost every chapter there is an "Action Battle". Action Battles take place on the field screen and like the name sugguests, are more action-based. Some of them involve solving a puzzle, and all of them involve fighting a boss. Nick is the only playable character during these sequences. His health is shown via "action HP" displayed underneath his sprite. Health is recovered by using Health Pencils, that are found during the battle or (later) bought in shops.

Mini Games
Baskin Goblins: to make extra money the player can get a job at Baskin Goblins ice cream. Customers approach the counter and the player has a limited amount of time to make their order.
Cart Ride: In the Bee Hive there is a mine cart the player can ride to collect Comb Coins.
Snowboarding: In order to get the Riley character, the player must beat three snowboarding levels.

[edit] Locations

The game takes place in the fictional land of the Santa Cruz Archipelago. Other than some names being similar to real life locations, the areas in the game are entirely fictional.
Towns:
Aptos Village
Watson
Pruned Grove
Question Mark Canyon
Dungeons
Aptos High Underground Chamber
The Birdie Palace
Aptos Beehive
Nick and Cooper's Backyard
Cody's Dungeon
Pruned Grove Forest
Underwater/Pirate Ship
Hidden Gym Area
Lee's Magic Shop
Tobinia
Alex's Lego Drawer
Welshbon and Goobidos' Ship
Ect.
Aptos High
Snowfalls Island
Jewjinia
Heavenia

[edit] Trivia

• Chapters 4,5 and 8 were the only ones really planned out. They were created either in class or at work, scribbled in Nick's notebook or receipt paper.
• The game was almost deleted several times, but luckily backed up by its creator. In 2006, while Nick was working on the game he received the error "Could not open project; map tree data is corrupt". Fixing this error is extremely tedious. Nick had to reset all the maps to save/nosave, re-select all of the music, and rename all 300+ maps.

[edit] External links

Aptos Adventures on Myspace
Download newest version
Youtube videos