I originally was only going to announce the artbook in this topic. However due to me completing the artbook earlier than expected. I suppose it is time for me to unveil all the juicy secrets and hidden meanings behind the Harold Trilogy and my entire thought process behind the creation of the trilogy.
You can also find the answers to the codes to enter HTML 3 - Macrocosm Lyterian here if you don't wish to play the first 2 games and get the codes for the secret good ending by virtue of actually playing HTML 1 and 2.
Artbook Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QHpjTLSRYjrwi7-ukuHqPfP97GaGQI6b/view?usp=shari...
General Origins
The idea to make a trilogy came from the fact that I wanted to not make the typical standard fare like any other game. I want to make a continuous story where 1 story interconnects with the others, leading to a trilogy being made. I am perfectly well aware that the game will not gel well with general audiences, as this is meant to be an experimental project.
I am aware that I can’t be as good as some powerhouse devs and my goal is not to be the most popular entry in the jam game. So I went in with that mindset in mind.
Of course, there is the issue of the time limit being 5-35 (maybe 45 if we’re being lenient) minute per game time gap. So I have to make due accordingly and cut off a lot of things like not adding other Harolds due to time constraints and it already dragging out as far as it can be. And I wanted to take reference points from multitudes of Harolds from all across its creation. Not just from Harold’s Last Stand but those outside of it as well.
I planned out and developed all the necessary concepts I need by researching through almost every Harold’s Last Stand entry from last year. Of course, that is no issue for me since I have played and give reviews for every game. So I have a multitude of materials to work with and have ideas to come from.
I wasn’t able to put every single Harold I want in place. Old Harold (not Oldhar the Dark Harold) is not a part of the entire thing because I wasn’t able to formulate a place for the guy in any of the trilogy. Maybe if next year fares better or if there’s a Reid jam that doesn’t overlap, I might consider putting the puzzle pieces there.
I wanted to make sure all the sub-themes were incorporated in some shape or form. Hence why the titling of every game has an abbreviation of HTML in them.
I also do not change anything drastically in terms of UI, using any and all default bases with minor changes placed inside, in order to capture MV at its most default while being unique in its own way.
There isn’t much of Therese, Lucius or Marsha until near the end because they can be intrusive to other Harolds. So I pegged them as hostage statues.
Theme6 is also incorporated in-game in order to provide the meme material we crave from the community in the RPG Maker scene.
Out of all the themes incorporated, Harold’s Apprentice is the most subtle as while Disc 1 has it said out loud alongside buff Harold from Harold’s Journey’s Beyond. There’s also a subtle nudge to suggest that Reid’s legacy is an apprenticeship of Harold’s. Thus providing an origin point for Reid to become the next big MZ RTP hero family alongside the many who preceded him.
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The default theme is also incorporated with the enemies. The bat, the slime, the minotaur, and the orc are the default enemies present inside the engine when you boot it up.
The world inside the Haroldverse with all the floating Harolds are remnants of the Trojan Harold from Harold’s Journey Beyond. While it is not outright said, Reid was given the opportunity to enact his revenge on Harold for being the more popular and beloved hero (as the comments on discord as far as I can see). That opportunity was this jam. And as I, the metagod (A lore term used to imply the developers, us), created this opportunity, so too Reid was given the ability to defy destiny.
Find the 2 passcodes and then face the Harold that ascended to the status of fame through the 2 metagods who loved them so much. (Nowis-337 and Human, whom elevated Harold’s fame to greater heights, thus giving him absolute authority to become a part of the RTP system, wherein He is Law itself.)
However, as the world dictates that Harolds reign victorious above all else, Reid must somehow shift the balance in his favor by acting as one. There is one caveat that the metagod would give. Namely that Reid can only disguise as female human Harold for the duration of his tampering.
With that, the metagod set out to create 2 female Harolds for Reid to use, Haroldine and Haroldina. (Basically I created Girl versions of Harolds to materialize in order to give this Harold a fighting chance.)
With the 1st world Harold visits, the prerequisites are simple. Trojan Harolds invade Monster Vale and if the default RTP monsters can beat Trojan Harold, he obtains the 1st passcode.
Reid concludes that there is a very low chance of them winning unless major interference is placed. As they were not only isolated but Trojan Harold was kept within a system where he cannot be reached through normal means.
However, Haroldina was given the access code to enter the Harold Zone, close to where Trojan Harold was kept. And thus she enacts the help of the default RTP monsters. (The base monster enemies that were used in RPG Maker MV were a bat, a minotaur, an orc and a slime.)
The 2 dangerous protective systems, Hrld and Buff Harold (from KV_Kingdoms and Nowis-337’s universe respectively) are to be the core foundation of Trojan Harold’s protection. However, they did not count on the fact that Haroldina was also tweaking the foundations of the Harold zone enough that the RTP monsters were given the opportunity to defy the odds.
The game is specifically designed to make you, the player, give up and quit. From the multitude of passcodes spread across 2 discs and the best ending requiring you to explore every facet of the world given. (Which is nullified by this article being made public.)
The subtle nudge from Ascended Harold in Disc 1 hints towards Haroldina’s true nature.
The sync gauge is based off of the combat system from Maer Zoltonia and the Mystery of the Missing Panties.
The Harold RTP monsters were a concept I have been creating for awhile now.
The ending leaves some room for interpretation like the Harold Trounce Mercenary Leader (Orc is not the smartest tool in the shed when coming up with names).
Passcode Disc 1 - Namuh is Human backwards (one part of the Metagods who hosted the jam)
The designs for our 4 playable characters in this game are designed with little nods for both the serious and goofy entries like Hollow Ruins and Haroldmancer.
The haroldmancer was destroyed to bits by the Human’s interpretation of Harold. However, for Disc 2, ascended Harold was able to reconstruct and rebirth him as a baby once more. The objective for Disc 2’s passcode to manifest requires Reid to have both Robot Harold (originating from Yanfly’s universe) and the Haroldmancer defeated by characters who bear no striking resemblance to Harold at all and the code must be pried from Robot Harold’s deactivated body.
Reid disguised as a bustier female Harold named Haroldine for this venture, who is versed with dark magic.
The character choices for this venture are the princess archetype, the beefy buff muscle man, the dark lord’s assistant, and a sex-loving addict serving the dark lord. They are meant to subvert the typical structure of the hero and the companion archetypes.
The beefy buff muscle man’s name is Hector, who has the same name as the mercenary from Hollow Ruins, to which their relation between both universes are mostly by name and not by their life experiences.
The tower itself is also a deep reference to the ruins, having Harolds be the only one with the sigil to open the gate. This is why Haroldine is able to open the entrance.
While princess Lorhad is a descendant of an exploded part of Harold in Haroldmancer, she does not bear the mark of a Harold, and thus she is unable to open the entrance without knowing any magic. And by that point, she is unaware of such means. However, she technically counts as a partial Harold lineage due to her Spark abilities. This is not mentioned in-game but it is implied.
The human ladder idea is also a concept taken from Hollow Ruins, where one of the characters mention of being a human ladder to Harold.
Both the mage Zakrias and the general Valentine are subordinates to Oldhar, and thus are eligible to combat against the Robot Harold and the Haroldmancer Reborn.
Oldhar was given concept thanks to the fact that it is a winning creation of the Original Character Contest Winners Season 3. Created by Nowis-337, and because of his connection to Harold, I was able to put together the piece where he would abdicate his position as the master of the tower to Robot Harold to give Reid (Haroldine) the opportunity to strike them down. Oldhar is also aware of his missing sword during this time, to which his dark sword left him for parts unknown.
Zakrias and Valentine are a bit of an oddity as they seem more OC than anything the other characters have gone through. However, they are part of the Haroldverse’s creation to give context to Oldhar’s dark army.
Robot Harold was originally placed alongside Yanfly and Flyingdream as part of their tips and tricks/plugin skits. However, when Yanfly stopped these skits, left and retired past a certain point. The metagod placed Robot Harold in a manic downward depression where he had no longer any purpose, and was forgotten by most of the community. (This is the headcanon of Disc 2’s manifestation of Robot Harold, and thus was interpreted as such.)
Robot Harold has known of the conditions set by Reid to open the path for him to face Ascended Harold and thus provides multiple layers of protection on himself to prevent him from losing.
- Set his parameters to high in order to ensure 1-hit kills.
- Separate the keys inside the dark tower in the form of his past memories in order to prevent him from being harmed.
However, he does not try very hard to prevent anyone from just taking all these actions or preventing anyone from revealing all this. As he wants to be killed, to be free from the emptiness he felt when his purpose was served. And his last mission, to buy time enough for a multitude of Harolds drowning (taken concept from Eric in the Sea (and now, Lorie’s secret Harold in The Scene)) and overflow the world with so many Harolds that it would drown in it.
The reason why I made Haroldmancer as a baby was because he was destroyed and can’t be simply brought back in full as a Harold destroyed him. And thus the recovery process is much slower than Ascended Harold would have wanted to. Also because the meta god doesn’t want to draw Aekashics+Human’s edits of the Haroldmancer as there are way too many details that take too much time to draw and each disc has a development cycle of 1 week tops (5 days at best).
Some plot points are hinted at while others are things that set up for future installments of Harold Tales should I be participating next year. Such as Zakrias learning all about the other Harolds.
The star system and the first-person combat is a shifting perspective to provide a unique experience detached from most side-view games I made. Its combat is a derivation and simplification of Whimsical Misadventures of Cinderella mixed with a bit of 0athkeeper 0.
The passcode for Disc 2 is 733, a reverse of Nowis-337’s numeric title name. The winner of last year’s Harold’s Last Stand and the subsequent artist and subtle (yet not so subtle) promoter of Harold as an artist and game developer.
The final act of the series requires both passcodes. Of course, this act is also a double-edged trap. As Reid has set the codes as such that he is the playable character instead of Harold due to the MZ’s theme6 being played instead of MV’s theme6.
The scrolling backgrounds created are all based off of the multitude of entries being made in the Harold’s Last Jam.
To specify, the games are all credited as follows:
- Haroldmancer from Human
- Hollow Ruins from DespairParty/Crossy
- Harold’s Journey Beyond from Nowis-337
- Haroldry from 3b48
- Heralded from Lochraleon
- Into the Light from BudgetVersailles
- Harold After from Paitshens
- Harold and the Washing Machine from NLAigis
- Dragon Slayer Harold from Kazuki_T126
- The World of Harold from Kupotepo
- Legend of Halida from Rose_Guardian
- Hrld Qst from KV_Kingdom
- Harold’s Last Stand from Neuralspyce
- Harold: The Arcade RPG from AceofAces
- Farewell to Harold from peatbogwoodlandmoss
- Harold Gets Screen Time from RonaldBabe/RonaldNotBabe
- Last Action Harold from Nova Kane
- Hero from Life is Cancer/Licro?
I intentionally not put Tuomo’s entry due to his controversial actions as a game developer in the past.
All of Reid’s battle skills are just boosted versions of his default ones.
The combat in this game takes a lot of elements from Whimsical Misadventures of Cinderella and Maer Zoltonia and the Mystery of the Missing Panties (and to an in-universe extent, Disc 1 and Disc 2 respectively but on reverse)
Though that is mostly through the lens of Reid. In the lens of Harold, it follows the same structural fare.
Incorporating Harold Immortal as a theme in both gameplay and story. As long as the Sync and Stars are available, they will remain immortal till the ends of time.
Ascended Harold culminates the many titles of RPG Maker MV and coalesces into a being of his own, creating him as the Law of the Universe itself.
Reid defeated him only serves to create a matrix error in the system, as he is not a Harold and by proxy, must be defeated. This loop will continue for all eternity as Priscilla can do nothing but to watch and give hints as to how the loop will end.
Harold in Disc 3 as a savior is one derived from Harold in the Plains but its mapping is changed for less comedic effect and more to guide Harold to end the cycle of the virus plaguing the true events that set this tragedy to motion.
The reveal that the dark sword Oldhar lost takes the hatred and envy of Reid and escalates it to the point where he is tempted to challenge Ascended Harold. To which Ascended Harold passed this knowledge down to the plains Harold, reducing his dumbness once you saved Marsha, Therese and Lucius.
The passcodes for entering their battles are based on their names translated to different forms of string manipulation. Specifically ASCII code and Hex.
Marsha’s code is her name on ASCII code: 77 97 114 115 104 97
Lucius’ code is his name on ASCII code: 76 117 99 105 117 115
(All without space)
Therese’s code is her name on hex: 54686572657365
These codes are scattered specifically throughout Disc 1 and 2.
Oldhar senses the anomaly and timeline change with Reid’s actions and discovers his sword.
Culminating in the battle of Harold and Oldhar vs Reid and the Dark Edge.
Lost: Sword is the keycode component to defeat the Sword and make it lose as the sword endlessly will repair itself unless it was forced to lose. And the command effect that it gives provides a cleansing antivirus software Harolds to ensure that the Sword admits defeat.
And with that, the truth of the Harold Tales has come to an end. The stories will continue. The meta will end and Priscilla and Reid are free from the whims of the gods of this world, for they will be shaped by other meta gods and their stories, culminating in the jam projects of the Haroldverse and future content creation. With Ascended Harold peering on and be further influenced by the other meta gods till the end of time. For his legacy has become immemorial.
If you start the game, Ascended Harold provides one parting word to the player. If you press continue, you will find that the ghostly voice that speaks to Harold talks via in-game computer of Howard, another one being closely resembling Harold. And Valentine making him say that one line in exchange for… them booty licking session.