That's fine. I understand most people wouldn't like these types of RPGs considering it's limiting in what you can do with the system (unlike Skyrim) but unfortunately I'm not a skilled graphics designer. Anyways I look forward to seeing what you have to say.
The game seems really cool. I got to Bastion and died but I will try and get farther later. There were a few bugs I found You can walk on top of the guy near the books on the first floor of the castle. The weird empty spot without walls at the south end of the second floor seemed like a door but wasn't I would really like to be able to click the actual entities in the battle screen and not just the names. Ever menu has to be clicked twice. Once to highlight and again to activate. Why not just highlight on hover? The weird wind sound followed me when I left the castle and went back inside really quickly. People that give you quests should give more reminders if you talk to them. For example, I had clicked through the guard talking a little to quickly and couldn't remember if he gave any directions. When I tried to talk to him again he wouldn't help. Same with the king and the key. The northern border outside the castle is just an invisible wall making it seem like a path somewhere The cellar battles give the illusion of your character being the size of a bug in fights. A random battle I had right before Bastion didn't have a background, just the map. Some of the wine shelves and stairs have floors that don't match the actual floor. The girl sitting in the room right above the one I started in looked much more blurry than anything else. It was slight but immediately caught my eye. Overall the game was really cool and I liked the Final Fantasy vibe to it. Some of the guiding as well was really clever. I quickly realized this game wasn't going to tell me every single location which is nice (emphasizes exploration) but I was a little worried about finding the house. I had a key and no other instructions except that it was under investigation. I was worried that I would have to try every house until I got lucky. The guard by the door immediately caught my eye and made it obvious where I needed to go. Little things like that are really cool and I hope the game can be filled with them. Final Fantasy 2 shows why you need it. People would say, "head to blalalal" and send me off. Since the world was massive and I had just gotten the boat, I had no idea where anything was. I ended up just googling it because searching the entire map for a cave that could be literally anywhere didn't seem fun. Not mention the fact that if I stepped onto the wrong island I would be murdered by high levels monsters.
I'm really glad you like it! Yeah I'm in the middle of balancing the stats so that the game isn't overwhelming difficult as well as pushover easy. 'a few" makes me paranoid and I should probably beta test my own game more. I'm stoked that you found this much wrong with it to be honest as I was about to submit it to a youtuber who specializes in playing these type of games. Yeah his "Through" was checked, an easy fix. Also another bug as at one point I had to shift the whole room to the left and down one so the transfers got stuck an easy fix as well. This is fixable with certain plugins but when i install those the game crashes. I've learned it's because I'm installing them after I've created battle scenes and if I do want to install it I would have to recreate every battle scene thus far, which I might end up doing one day or if I ever decide to revisit the game. The Enter key is helpful in this aspect. Reason being is because I tried to make it use the mouse a lot less so the intended keys are the arrows (up and down) then enter. Allowing people who play on laptops to play the game in cars and for mobile users (if I ever decide to convert over to that) to use a handful of presses. Something I could edit but as far as I'm concerned this is working as intended. Now fixed, instead of cutting off the sound I made it to fade out within a couple of seconds to stop the "wind" from continuing into the castle. This is intended to be an expansion of sorts when I release the full game. Nothing much at the moment but it does lead somewhere. That's just the background images, as I'm not an artist by any means I can't fix this at the moment. Another easy fix I forgot to set the battle background images for that map xD Ah, good catch. This would be because I ended up changing the floor to the cellar since VB1. Like an idiot I forgot to change the floors underneath all of the entities. That "girl" would be a doll or toy. It's your sister's room. Yeah since I lack a "quest log" at the moment I figured subtle hints would be a nice way to guide the player along through the main quest at least. Granted I've had a few people tell me that the directions aren't clear enough or the world is kind of hiding itself (which is the opposite of what I want) I highly suggest speaking to nearly every NPC (some might be references or easter eggs ) each of them are unique (besides the guards obviously) and I try to make them interesting to think about. I'm really glad you had fun with it and seeing people enjoy this game makes me wanna work on it that much more. <3 --------------- As a side note I'm debating whether or not I should release this in acts/chapters or just wait till I finish the game and let people play through. What's bad about this is I would have to find a way to save player data for between updates (otherwise you would have to restart over and over every time an update came out) lemme know what you guys think.
Game just crashed with the message "Failed to load: img/faces/Gnnifer(Evil)Emotions.png" when I walked into the room right after Bastion and tried to talk to the lady and the demon. As for episode, I think it could be cool but has to be done right. If each episode it released as its own game, they have to be self contained. You also have to make sure there is some continuity between episodes. These two goals will fight each other unless the game scales with you really well since balancing towards people who played the first will mess up those who didn't. Making them chapters inside of one game with each unlocked after the other would be fine though and could do whatever you want. If you go the separate games approach, a possible solution would be telling the story through a new character each episode. This fixes most of your problems right there.
Also found that out when I ran through it. I'm not talking about episodes particularly. More like releasing sections of the game as I complete them. Perhaps I should just ask for a dedicated testing team to run through my maps, that way I know these people would run through the game, over and over again. I dunno. I guess I should practice this type of stuff. I might be interested in looking for a team soon (music makers, graphic designers, community managers, etc.) I'm just really small right now. xD
I would be interested in helping out if you need it . Once you get a new version out, I will run through it some more.
I tried downloading it but it didnt work, I will try again and see if it does Also what are you using to make this??
RPG Maker. If you're having issues just downloading I'm afraid theres not much I can do. But if you can, once you download it, extract the folder using WinRAR or 7Zip. Once you've done that you should be able to just run the game using the .exe inside of the folder.
Finally had some time to sit down and play this. It's... functional, but there's a lot of room for improvement. "Gold" vs "Casks" - It took me a while to understand that "Cask" was a unit of currency. Making up fictional money is fine, but you might want to rethink the name. "Cask" already has a use in English, as a small barrel (usually to hold wine or other liquor, ie a cask of ale). Unless everyone in Caskaria is paying with booze, it's somewhat confusing. Moreover, when the little girl asks you to buy a doll for her father, she says "here's 300 gold," lending further confusion to the usage. Combat - Unless I miss my guess, "speed" as an attribute is used to determine who strikes first in a round (as well as their chance to dodge). Dodging is fine, but unless the monster specifically gets the drop on the player, you should revise this mechanic so the player strikes first. Getting pummeled before you can even make a move is not fun, and makes early leveling far more painful than it needs to be. Also, the "double-tap" glove actually hits 3x, might want to fix that. Story - Gonna be honest, what little I've seen of it thus far isn't terribly compelling. Seems to be more of the same "Hero gets drawn into mysterious plot and saves the world from ultimate evil" trope that every other RPG use. However, the game also crashed on me right when it had the opportunity to start proving me wrong - "file: gennifer(evil)face.png not found!" Now don't get me wrong, the world-saving isn't a bad thing on its own, but the games that do it well rely on the strength of their characters. Kirian (and anyone else you speak with) appear to be one-dimensional placeholders right now. -Dream Sequence: I have no idea what you're going for with that Jester, but whatever it is, it's not working. He just comes off as weird. More to the point, he doesn't seem to have any "value" as a henchman, thus his mouthing-off to the Big Bad seems like something that would've gotten him killed long before their evil plan got to that point. It's not believable and so comes across as silly and out of place. Suggestion: Either include something to establish his use as a minion, or rewrite his lines to be properly deferential. -Big Bad: "How dare you talk to me as if I'm some kind of minion. Don't forget, YOU are the minion here, clown!" Something about this bit struck me as particularly awkward and weird. It's hard to imagine anyone actually speaking in this fashion. The intent is there, but the words feel all wrong. Suggestion: Maybe try something like, "Did you forget who you were speaking to? Mind your tongue clown, or I'll have it torn from you." -Castle: It'd be a good touch to have the guard say something else if you speak to him after he moves into the hall. He was just talking to you, "I'm on duty," feels robotic. Even something simple like "(The King / Your father) is waiting for you," would be a substantial improvement. Minor detail, but one that matters I think. -Throne Room: The King gets into an argument with his captain over Kirian's fighting ability. There is so much opportunity here, and instead it ends up being "Hush, because I said so and I'm king." This is a great spot for a combat tutorial, some actual character development, or at least some hint to Kirian's ability - keeping in mind, the player has only just entered the game and has exactly zero evidence that Kirian can do anything of use, other than taking it on faith because "he's the hero." It also portrays the King as an authoritarian hardass who ignores the advice of his supposedly "trusted" underlings. -Advisor Horus feels entirely useless here. He doesn't say anything the King couldn't tell you, and the Captain could be the one providing the housekey. Also, if his men aren't already looking into the matter, why is there a guard outside the house? Maybe make it clear they tried searching, but found no leads. Exploration - The world feels very dead and static, random village sprites aside. Most RPGs of this fashion I've played, if you tried to interact with "clutter," it would at least tell you it was useless clutter. For example, in Shining Force 2 (Sega Genesis), you can "search" bookshelves, and it'll tell you "You find a copy of '[silly title here'," or something to that effect. Interacting with items like bookshelves, anvils, tables, dolls - it should yield some kind of result, even if it's just "You find nothing interesting here." "The dolls stares blankly ahead. Creepy." "None of these books look like theve' been read in years. Or ever." ...etc. Glitches - Sometimes in the caves, the "crate" chests disappear, or even weirder, change to "chest" sprites (until you move). Not sure if this is something you can fix, but worth mentioning. Artwork - I know you're using stock / free assets as you can find them, but consistency is important. One thing that started driving me nuts once I noticed it was the battle sprites. Enemies are large, detailed images, while Kirian's sprite is the same tiny figure used on the world-map. It completely destroys any sense of scale, and looks really bad. Need to find an appropriate battle sprite for your hero(s). Check the site "opengameart.org" if you haven't yet, it's a wealth of free resources, many of which are specifically designed for RPGmaker. Hope you find some of this helpful. I know it may be a bit overly critical, since I'm basing it on such a small part of the game, but I think it's important to hook your players and draw them in early. You've got a good start - a functional, playable game - it just needs a substantial amount of polish and refining. Good luck!
First of all I'd like to thank you. Not just for playing my game but for giving me actual advice critical towards the game and it's concept. I'll admit, I was lazy with the storyboard when I first started and when I already too deep I tried to save it. I wanted some twists with the storyline and have it foreshadowed in the early game which is why I'm not too surprised by your dislike of it. I love that you suggested alternate pieces to things you don't like and now that I've taken a few days of a break from working on it, I see now that most if not all of my conversations are awkward or they just don't make much practical sense. As such I love your post more than you could ever imagine because it makes me wanna get back into working on it for long periods of time and I'll take your bulletins one by one. Casks could actually be edited to being something a bit more unique I just used that a placeholder until I think of something clever. (I have the power to change the word "Casks" into something else within 3 minutes) The little girl is actually something on my part due to me just being a clutz. Speed, Dodge, Critical Chance, and more random variables are just that. Variables. Speed normally depends on the move (Like Quick Attack in Pokemon) more so than a stat. So if you're using an OP field clearing move you don't do it before the enemy has a chance to fight. Again the Glove is on my fault and has since been removed from the actual game for the time being. As stated above I've begun to revamp all of the dialogue. That Gennifer error was fixed in the latest demo release. -So it is working. Trust me, he'll seem weird at first but his usefulness should be revealed deeper into the game. He's pointless within the first 2 acts. Which is why his "mouthing off" is tolerated to a degree. The dream isn't past; it's future due to the current set of events, should they carry on as they would've if Kirian had not had that dream. -That is... a much better suggestion than what I currently had. It's no wonder why you're a novelist and I'm just a writer in waiting. -^ -I did want a tutorial of sorts, and this would be the perfect opportunity for it. It actually gives me an idea for a character creation. -I felt that way too, but I didn't want the conversation to take too long as it's not like there's a cinematic. I really want to redo this whole game as it sits because I could be doing so much better with my early attempts at creating things now than I did 50 hours into it. Maybe I'll do just that... -I did have plans for this, even simple things like gravestones and weird looking spots on a wall. -That... actually might be something with the version. It may be fixed in the latest, but I wouldn't bother downloading it right now because it seems that while writing this RPG Maker seems to have corrupted my current game progress... Once I post this I'll try to system restore to save what I can but I might have to restart from scratch -_-Even my backup got corrupted... As for art work, I've looked at several different sites and none of them fit 100% perfectly with the default sprites of RPG Maker, sadly. Most of what someone does is either too custom (to the point that it stands out) or just something not of what I'm looking for. (Will Edit a bit to expand on some points, but right now I'd like to see if I can fix this issue)
Good to hear you're rewriting! The corrupted save sucks, but sometimes a fresh start can be a good thing (even if it means losing hours of work). Remember the MP Holy Grail bit? "Everyone said he was daft to build a castle in a swamp, but he did it anyway! ...It sank into the swamp. So he built another! That sank into the swamp. So he built a third! That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth! The fourth stayed up!" ...Anyway, something I wanted to add, regarding character development: Always ask why? The best advice I can give is to take each character you can speak with in your game (player/Kirian included) and make a quick character bio for them - likes, dislikes, habits, major important details. Keep it brief, it should be a bullet-point summary only, a guideline when writing their dialogue. Then, line by line, item by item, ask them why. Example: "King" -Dislikes cats. Why? Aunt had a really mean calico and it would always scratch him when he tried to pet it. Is it relevant to the story? Not necessarily. But having that framework in place means you'll get a deeper sense of who the character is, and that'll influence your writing even at a subconscious level while you're writing it. You'll have a much easier time stepping back from your work and saying "Okay, will [X] actually say this?" -Another point to consider is that for this type of game, practically everything is dialogue. Try to imagine the characters saying it out loud, or even better, do so yourself. If it sounds weird, off, or unnatural - or just not something that they'd say - revision is needed. It can also influence details in the "clutter" of their home. For instance, Kirian attempting to peek inside an oven... Kirian: "Is... is this a DOG?" Villager: "No, that's dinner. Close the door, it's not done baking yet!" ---- (Attempting to inspect the oven again) *Kirian stares at the oven, horrified.* Or inspecting a closet... Villager: "Prince or not, it's rude to go rummaging through someone's stuff without permission!" ---- Villager: "Stop that." You get the idea. A key point to keep in mind, to make your game memorable, is to convey as much personality as you can, for every character, with the minimum amount of actual dialogue - no different from any other kind of story-writing, actually. You might also find this useful, though there's plenty of other tips and advice on good character creation out there. *(Also, you give me way too much credit. I'm not a novelist yet, just one more aspiring writer.)
Changed up the combat mechanics a bit, thinking of trying something of this sort. If I can do this correctly I may have to find some sort of free program to give images transparent backgrounds (for handmade creature sprites) This is gonna take a while.
So a small update to the above post. ^^^ I've figured out how to scale down the enemies and give them a sort of breathing animation. I've also created a character selection menu! I'll be posting pictures tomorrow with further details. As well as updating the main post and removing the now trashed demo. Bump!
Character selection? I'm sold, if only based on the screenshot above with the cat ears & tail. Khajiit are more fun, but I'll take nekos too
That's actually the Scoundrel character, think of a rogue who dodges and has moves that steal opponents abilities. Also Scoundrel unique weapons and armor.
Updated OP: Will add more pictures tomorrow once I clean up and see if I can knock out a map or two. Anyways, enjoy the brief descriptions of my characters.
Working on events currently, but still chugging through. Hopefully I'll have a Jordan Early Playthrough up soon. It won't be much but it'll be something.
