FBOP Demo 9/16/07

[The Smurf]

The third demo for FBOP has been uploaded. This time I made sure to include RGSS100J.dll, so there shouldn't be any problem opening the game anymore. *knocks on wood*

So, here's what you get:

-Story up to and including the fishing village of Guernsey
-Almost all custom music, with only battle music and one area still using ToS rips
-Functioning alchemy system
-Functioning blacksmith
-Fortune-telling/Horoscope reading
-"Private actions" of sorts where you can talk to party members and learn about them
-The panpipe item found and used in Eulica Forest
-Prototype item in Guernsey for later use in the full game
-Two boss fights (one easy, the other requiring *some* strategy - remember, it's still early on in the game)
-Enemies of all elements
-2 easter egg cameo appearances...can you find them?
-Set-ups for a few sidequests
-Variables that keep track of character relations
-About an hour and twenty minutes of gameplay

Sound good? Hopefully this can keep you guys distracted for a while. I may have more screens/music/other updates coming eventually, but I figure this is good enough for now.

Here's the link:

Freewill: Book of Prophecy Demo 3 (zip file)

Let me know if there are any problems with opening/playing the game. Otherwise, enjoy...comments and critiques all welcome.


-the smurf

[Dungeon Warden]

When I tried to get the game to work, it said I needed RGSS102E.dll; However, the game crashed when I tried that. I then got RGSS103J.dll (which is designed to work on Windows Vista) and I got the program up and running.

I'm not sure how many people are using Vista, so others may get it working with these problems. I just thought I'd let people know that the program will work with the new dll.

[Deleted]

I have Windows Millennium Edition (ME), and it didn't work. Where would one be able to find RGSS103J.dll for download?

[The Smurf]

Okay. I see what happened. Thank you both for being specific about the .dll problems. This will be fixed momentarily.


-the smurf

EDIT: I have all three .dll's included in a new file that is currently uploading. From what I read in the help files, it seemed like I only needed the one...I guess I read it wrong. Either way, I will momentarily have a new file uploaded with all 3 .dll's included.

EDIT 2: We're good. I uploaded the file, downloaded it, opened it, it's got everything, all 3 dll's are there. The link is the same, so the one in the first post will still work. Thank you for bringing this to my attention so quickly.

So, in short, link still works, new file with all the dll's in it, everything should be peachy now. *knocks on wood harder*

[Dungeon Warden]

I've finished the demo so here are the comments:

What I liked:

The towns had the right mix of people and buildings to feel like towns without being too crowded.

There was lots of freedom to explore around, yet the game never lets you get lost.

There were several interesting events that keep the game from getting boring.

The story was interesting without being too complex.

The fights were challenging without being too difficult.

What I didn't like:

The layout of the first town made it hard to get around. You could get through some places and not others making it hard to find shortcuts. One section has a girl who always stands right in the middle of the path. You either have to go the long way around or wait for her to move.

The story moves along too quickly. You are locked up at one point and escape right away. There's no real sense that the characters were trapped or in danger at all.

On the one hand battles seem a little too easy (except for that last boss), but on the other hand, once you run out of tech points your weapons hardly do any damage at all.

Every battle gives you ~43 gp, which is fine at first when weapons are armor are cheap, but near the end of the demo I couldn't buy anything without fighting 15-20 battles first. Before I went up a level, I could only fight ~5 battles before I had to run back to town to rest.

The cheaper recovery items give you only 10% back, which means you either need to use a lot of then or get the more expensive kind. Since you need to save money for weapons and armor, it's better to rest in an inn then to bother using items.

Serious glitches:

The only glitch I found was at the very end when you enter the inn you wind up back in the previous town. I'm sure this was just because you hadn't finished the town as the demo is basically over at this point.

Other then that everything ran soothly.

Overall:

I enjoyed the demo even though it felt a bit easy. The story is interesting but there isn't much drama. It's nice that you can find out more about the characters but it doesn't feel like you really developed them beyond the one character who lost her mother.

It would be nice if there was more to do in each town. The game has you going town - wilderness - town - wilderness - town without anything really happening in between. All those towns between the first one and the seaport near the end don't really add anything to the game. Unless you're planning to have a lot of back tracking and exploration in the areas that you skip over the first time, there is no reason to have so many towns so close together.

Look at the pacing of other RPGs. Whenever the party arrives in a new area there is always something they need to do before they can move on. If the first thing you need to do after the introduction is head to a certain city, then the party should arrive at that city next. You shouldn't have a bunch of towns between Point A and Point B, unless much of the game involves moving back and forth between these areas. If that's the case, there should be some hint there are things happening that the player can't deal with now but that will be important later on. This is called foreshadowing, and it's a great way to make the player feel like this is a living, breathing world and not just an endless series of towns and wilderness encounters.

Design 8/10 - other then the first town, everything is well designed
Game play 7/10 - battles are easy but require TP
Story 6/10 - story works but not much drama
Overall 7/10 - enjoyable playable demo. Not much to it.

[Maindric Games ©]

Ok, I began to play it, and when I was, to me, it felt like not much was going on. It felt, stale. Like when they kille Moritmer, the other people just stood there, and watched, as Dungeon Warden said, not much drama. That is the main thing with me. Other then that, it seemed pretty good. Looking forward to the completed product.

[Dungeon Warden]

hum, that death scene must have been so bad that I completely blocked it out when I wrote my review.

It wasn't just that no one tried to help. It was the fact no one even said anything. Everyone just stood there watching until it was over without questioning what was happening at all. One way to fix it would be to have the solders surround the table so no one could react (though they could still say something).

Another problem is why didn't the villain kill everyone? He waited until the perfect time to kill all his enemies together in one place, and then killed the one person he could have killed at any time.

What you could do is have a battle between the solders and the party while Moritmer is killed by the villain. Then you could have the bad guys retreat and the death scene would happen after that.

This seems like an important part of the story, so you should take the time to get the player emotionally involved. Think about how you would feel if you were actually one of the people at the scene. Put yourself in each characters shoes and think about each people's personalities and emotions. This is a great time to show how each of the party members react to stress. Individual reactions really make the characters come to life and act like real people.

I'm not really expecting fine literature here (although it would really make your game stand out), but you should at least think about how you would act if you were in the same situation.

Overall, I had no problem with your demo. I just wish there was more to the story. I don't mean the story as a whole (this is only a demo after all) but to the individual scenes. Everything that happens just happens. Put some thought into the character development and the drama and your game will go from 'okay' to 'great.'

P.S. Another thing I wanted to mention. Early in the story the main character picks a lock without any explanation about how he learned such a skill. For dramatic purposes, any explanation should come before this scene. Perhaps the beginning of the game could include some information about his upbringing. He could talk to the person who taught him or mention it for some other reason.

Near the end of the game, the party comes upon a locked chest. There is no attempt to unlock it or even acknowledge that the leader has any way to pick the lock.

If you want to have locked chests in the game that require a key, it would be better not to suggest that any of the characters can pick locks or at least give a reason why he could pick one kind of lock and not another.

[The Smurf]

Okay. It seems like I've got quite a lot to respond to, so here goes:

The layout of the first town made it hard to get around. You could get through some places and not others making it hard to find shortcuts. One section has a girl who always stands right in the middle of the path. You either have to go the long way around or wait for her to move.

I'm curious as to what you mean by "get through some places and not others." As for the townsperson, I'll try to move some of them around and out of the way.

The story moves along too quickly. You are locked up at one point and escape right away. There's no real sense that the characters were trapped or in danger at all.

Well, I didn't want to have an expansive dungeon at the beginning of the game. I actually felt that this was handled well, considering you were able to escape, but you couldn't go far before getting caught and thrown into a battle. I'm not really sure how to address this other than maybe adding a second obligatory battle. Any suggestions?

On the one hand battles seem a little too easy (except for that last boss), but on the other hand, once you run out of tech points your weapons hardly do any damage at all.

I'm still trying to balance the weapons/skill ratio, so hopefully that will not be a problem later on.

Every battle gives you ~43 gp, which is fine at first when weapons are armor are cheap, but near the end of the demo I couldn't buy anything without fighting 15-20 battles first. Before I went up a level, I could only fight ~5 battles before I had to run back to town to rest.

The cheaper recovery items give you only 10% back, which means you either need to use a lot of then or get the more expensive kind. Since you need to save money for weapons and armor, it's better to rest in an inn then to bother using items.

I'll see about making items cheaper. First-level armor and such can be found in treasure chests, and next-level weaponry and eventually armor will be able to be created...I'll lower some prices, but eventually you shouldn't even need to get your upgrades at the store...

The only glitch I found was at the very end when you enter the inn you wind up back in the previous town. I'm sure this was just because you hadn't finished the town as the demo is basically over at this point.

Nice catch. I musta missed that one.

Other then that everything ran soothly.

I enjoyed the demo even though it felt a bit easy. The story is interesting but there isn't much drama. It's nice that you can find out more about the characters but it doesn't feel like you really developed them beyond the one character who lost her mother.

I have to ask...did you talk to the characters at every opportunity? Landover before bed, Hargrave before bed, SS Rocinante? I gave a ton of background on Laef and Kat's relationship, Autumn's internal conflict, and Celyn's lack of self-confidence. Depending on who you talked to at what points and which options you chose, you may or may not have gotten all the info on everybody. But these are the convos that affect your relationship points with the respective character, and they certainly reveal a lot.

It would be nice if there was more to do in each town. The game has you going town - wilderness - town - wilderness - town without anything really happening in between. All those towns between the first one and the seaport near the end don't really add anything to the game. Unless you're planning to have a lot of back tracking and exploration in the areas that you skip over the first time, there is no reason to have so many towns so close together.

I do intend to have you go back eventually, however I do see what you mean. I'll try to add things such as minigames and more sidequests and such. Thanks for the tip.

It wasn't just that no one tried to help. It was the fact no one even said anything. Everyone just stood there watching until it was over without questioning what was happening at all. One way to fix it would be to have the solders surround the table so no one could react (though they could still say something).

...

What you could do is have a battle between the solders and the party while Moritmer is killed by the villain. Then you could have the bad guys retreat and the death scene would happen after that.

I like those ideas a lot. I don't know why I didn't think to have a battle, as it does seem appropriate. BUT...

Another problem is why didn't the villain kill everyone? He waited until the perfect time to kill all his enemies together in one place, and then killed the one person he could have killed at any time.

This is a misinterperetation. The villain never intended to kill the heirs. Crane is, as he stated, leading an attack on Covenant City, which I alluded to with a few NPCs: "There's a bit of turbulence going on around Covenant City..." If you remember his words, he stated that he wished to know what is written in the Book of Prophecy. Therefore, Mortimer, being a high order member of the Covenant, stood in his way. The heirs are no threat to him; he has the Reformed King's Army, and is making an attack on the Covenant immediately, before all the heirs can amass. He may not have even known that those people were the heirs. Either way, they were arbitrary; his focus was Mortimer. However, this doesn't mean the heirs aren't being targeted by somebody *hint hint*.

This seems like an important part of the story, so you should take the time to get the player emotionally involved. Think about how you would feel if you were actually one of the people at the scene. Put yourself in each characters shoes and think about each people's personalities and emotions. This is a great time to show how each of the party members react to stress. Individual reactions really make the characters come to life and act like real people.

I do agree. I'll try to add more flavor on the part of the four heirs, as this is a good opportunity to introduce personality. However, (and this seems to be misunderstood by everyone), Mortimer didn't put up a fight. Mortimer let himself be killed. People who've played the demo (both here and at rmxp.org) have had a problem with this. I can't stress enough though that this is intentional. I won't say anything more.

P.S. Another thing I wanted to mention. Early in the story the main character picks a lock without any explanation about how he learned such a skill. For dramatic purposes, any explanation should come before this scene. Perhaps the beginning of the game could include some information about his upbringing. He could talk to the person who taught him or mention it for some other reason.

Near the end of the game, the party comes upon a locked chest. There is no attempt to unlock it or even acknowledge that the leader has any way to pick the lock.

If you want to have locked chests in the game that require a key, it would be better not to suggest that any of the characters can pick locks or at least give a reason why he could pick one kind of lock and not another.

That's a great observation that I totally missed. I'm glad you noticed that, because I didn't even think about it. I'll figure something out for that and add it into the scene(s) where necessary.

Thank you for playing the demo and leaving such detailed feedback. I'll take all of the suggestions to heart as I edit and continue progress on the project.




-the smurf

[Dungeon Warden]

By "get through some places and not others," I mean that there are some objects you can walk behind like trees and somethings you can't (Houses sometimes can't be walked behind for some reason). Some plants can be walked over and others can't. Therefore, trying to find shortcuts around buildings and through plants often leads to dead ends.

I should also point out that, while it's understandable that there are only certain places you can leave areas (RPG Maker 2 has the same problem), it is kind of unrealistic. Most professional games design the towns and wilderness areas so that there are fences, cliffs, walls and other objects preventing the player trying to exit at the wrong places. The exit point could also be made bigger by putting several exit events together since RPG Maker XP doesn't have the memory limits of RPG Maker 2.

The prison scene doesn't need a second battle, it needs more drama. If you've ever played an RPG with a prison scene, you know that the player has to search around the cell and find a secret exit or someone from the outside has to help them. There's no drama in just opening the lock and leaving.

About the treasure chests, it was kind of annoying to spend your hard earned money on equipment only to find the item you just bough in a chest. You start with just enough money to buy a leather cap and a shield, but one of the first chests you find contains a shield - and only the main character can use a shield. I had to restart my game so that I could buy the armor instead of wasting my money. It would have made more sense to have the armor in the chest. That way, you could at least keep the armor and equip it on another character later on.

This is really a minor quibble, since this happens in professional games as well.

You don't really need to lower the prices if you could just make tougher enemies leave more treasure. Maybe even have them randomly drop equipment or a high priced item you could use or sell.

I did talk to the characters when I could. Maybe I didn't respond correctly to get the best response. I don't know. I just didn't find the characters very interesting.

It's not just about adding mini-games and side quests to the towns. It's about justifying why the towns are there in the first place. Think about the way towns are laid out in your favorite RPGs. Most towns are either an important stop on your quest or they are blocking your progress somehow. By important stop, I don't mean something has to happen in the town itself. The town could just be the closest place to rest from the dungeon you need to enter. Most of your towns are just places to buy equipment, which you can't afford, and to rest before traveling to the next town.

Back to the death of Mortimer. Maybe these questions are answered later, but some hints of a deeper story should be given at this time or else it feels like lazy writing.

How was Mortimer standing in Crane's way? Did he have a key to the book or did his death have some other profound effect that is unclear? Crane wants to know what's in the book, so how is killing the one person who's read the book and knows where it is going to help him? Wouldn't it make more sense to torture him until he revealed the secret? He's is already attacking Covenant with every reason to believe he will succeed, so why bother with Mortimer at all? Why pick now to attack and kill him?

If Mortimer lets himself get killed, this should be made very clear in the story. Like Obwan in A New Hope, he needs to say something to indicate he believes dying will serve a greater purpose then living. It is unnatural to allow someone to kill you and that is why this scene rings false. Even if you don't want to give the reason for his surrender, you should at least make it very clear that there is a reason.

Keep up the good work. I look forward to your new and improved story and to continuing the adventure.

[The Smurf]

dungeonwarden said:

By "get through some places and not others," I mean that there are some objects you can walk behind like trees and somethings you can't (Houses sometimes can't be walked behind for some reason). Some plants can be walked over and others can't. Therefore, trying to find shortcuts around buildings and through plants often leads to dead ends.

Ah, this is mostly due to the tileset. I'll look at the mapping and see if I can rearrange some things, but the passability and priority "issues" probably won't change. I'll see what I can do.

dungeonwarden said:

I should also point out that, while it's understandable that there are only certain places you can leave areas (RPG Maker 2 has the same problem), it is kind of unrealistic. Most professional games design the towns and wilderness areas so that there are fences, cliffs, walls and other objects preventing the player trying to exit at the wrong places. The exit point could also be made bigger by putting several exit events together since RPG Maker XP doesn't have the memory limits of RPG Maker 2.

I'll go through and add some more transport events.

dungeonwarden said:

The prison scene doesn't need a second battle, it needs more drama. If you've ever played an RPG with a prison scene, you know that the player has to search around the cell and find a secret exit or someone from the outside has to help them. There's no drama in just opening the lock and leaving.

That's a good point. That will also take care of the "picking the lock on the door but not the chest" paradox created earlier.

dungeonwarden said:

About the treasure chests, it was kind of annoying to spend your hard earned money on equipment only to find the item you just bough in a chest. You start with just enough money to buy a leather cap and a shield, but one of the first chests you find contains a shield - and only the main character can use a shield. I had to restart my game so that I could buy the armor instead of wasting my money. It would have made more sense to have the armor in the chest. That way, you could at least keep the armor and equip it on another character later on.

This is really a minor quibble, since this happens in professional games as well.

You don't really need to lower the prices if you could just make tougher enemies leave more treasure. Maybe even have them randomly drop equipment or a high priced item you could use or sell.

I'll look again at what I have as my drop ratios and stuff, and tweak it a bit more.

dungeonwarden said:

I did talk to the characters when I could. Maybe I didn't respond correctly to get the best response. I don't know. I just didn't find the characters very interesting.

I guess that's partly a matter of opinion, and partly due to the fact that I haven't yet had scenes explicitly with a focus on a single character (other than Autumn) yet. I do have monologue scenes planned for Laef, Kat, Celyn, and a few of the other party characters to be executed at later points in the game, and there will be many, many more opportunities to speak to the characters during "events". I also have sidequests planned for multiple characters to face the "flaws" that I set for them in my main game topic.

dungeonwarden said:

It's not just about adding mini-games and side quests to the towns. It's about justifying why the towns are there in the first place. Think about the way towns are laid out in your favorite RPGs. Most towns are either an important stop on your quest or they are blocking your progress somehow. By important stop, I don't mean something has to happen in the town itself. The town could just be the closest place to rest from the dungeon you need to enter. Most of your towns are just places to buy equipment, which you can't afford, and to rest before traveling to the next town.

Assuming we're excluding Arcul (the beginning town) and Hargrave (the port town, basically the main destination of the demo), that leaves Landover and Langstoon. I don't see how Landover isn't a justified "stop" on your journey. You passed through a mountain trail to get there and are heading into a dark forest. The party needs a rest, and there's a big scene involved. Not to mention there are three sidequests that are introduced by talking to townsfolk (finding the sea creature, finding the "blocky, yellow creature", and searching for Alex's bandmates).

Langstoon contains an important "legend", if you will, that is central to the game. I'm in the process of making it a mandatory event. Again, it serves as a rest stop as you emerge from the forest, and if you talked to the townsfolk, you know that a blacksmith shop is in the process of being opened. This could be shrugged off, but thinking about it logically you can assume that because it requires you to return to the town, it must provide good equipment.

Of course, you'll need to return to both Landover and Langstoon at some point during the game. But that shouldn't necessarily be obvious to the player, should it?

dungeonwarden said:

How was Mortimer standing in Crane's way? Did he have a key to the book or did his death have some other profound effect that is unclear? Crane wants to know what's in the book, so how is killing the one person who's read the book and knows where it is going to help him? Wouldn't it make more sense to torture him until he revealed the secret? He's is already attacking Covenant with every reason to believe he will succeed, so why bother with Mortimer at all? Why pick now to attack and kill him?

If Mortimer lets himself get killed, this should be made very clear in the story. Like Obwan in A New Hope, he needs to say something to indicate he believes dying will serve a greater purpose then living. It is unnatural to allow someone to kill you and that is why this scene rings false. Even if you don't want to give the reason for his surrender, you should at least make it very clear that there is a reason.

I could write an essay answering these questions, but doing so would involve revealing characters and plot points that I wish to remain unknown to both readers as well as the player until the appropriate times. If you'd really like to know the details about the whole thing, I can PM them to you. Either way, I will try to edit the dialog in the scene to make it more apparent that there is deeper meaning.

However, that first paragraph is asking questions that the player should be asking about this scenario. It doesn't necessarily make sense. Not everything is supposed to make sense to the player at the moment. Later on, when much of this is explained or learned, the player will look back on this event and understand why it happened the way it did. The player should know that Crane wants to know the prophecy. His reason is explained by Grandma Albright in the very first scene. The player should know that, somehow, Mortimer stood in Crane's way. He can assume that this is due to the fact that Mortimer is meant to protect the prophecy, and that should suffice for now, until this is explored further. Mortimer letting himself be killed should not be understood by the player at this point.

dungeonwarden said:

Keep up the good work. I look forward to your new and improved story and to continuing the adventure.

Thank you for all the help you've provided in trying to constructively criticize the demo. It's really helped a lot, and your sentiments mean much to me.

Hopefully I can turn this into a completed product worth the time and effort of its creation.




-the smurf

[Dungeon Warden]

Not to keep harping on the mortimer scene, but you've fallen into one of the traps that many new writers fall into. That is, trying ti keep so much hidden from the player that the story starts to not make sense logically anymore. You know what's going to happen so it makes sense to you, but to someone who has no idea what's going on the whole scene feels poorly written and illogical.

I'm not interested in knowing the answers to my questions (at least not until I play the rest of the game), I just want you to realize that people who don't know what's going on are going to have a hard time believing this could really happen.

One thing I've learned is that you could give away a lot of secrets at this point and people still wouldn't understand what's happening. Have you ever walked into the middle of a conversation and not understood that people are talking about? This scene should feel like that. Mortimer and Crane should talk as if they are in the middle of a conversation so that the player knows something is going on without really understanding what. As they play the game the pieces will start to fit together and they can start making sense of it all.

One way to keep your secrets is to speak in code. Have the characters say things like "Remember what happened to Hargar", and "Sandor was only a legend" Later on the characters can learn some of these stories and try to piece together what is going on. This way the reasons for the characters' actions will be explained in a way that the player won't understand but will still let the player know there is a reason for the way things happened.

I know it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of a new player,but when keeping secrets leads to major flaws in the believability of the story, you might want to rethink your policy on keeping secrets. Remember, no one knows what's really happening but you. You can probably give away a few secrets early on without ruining the story. All I ask is that you think about it.

[The Final Rune]

[white]Since I finally have my windows up and running again I can finally try this out. Downloading now, will return soon with a review.[/white]

[The Smurf]

Sorry I'm so late in responding to this. Thanks for looking into it, and I'm looking forward to your opinion of the game so far.


-the smurf

[Neo Samurai]

All right, I'm not too sure if I finished this game or not (just got the panpipe), but from what I've seen so far, I'll review.

The beginning seemed to have a lot of promise. Two people vaguely talking about a mysterious book. It looked like it had a lot of potential. Then, came the next scene...

Don't take this the wrong way, but it wasn't very interesting just sitting there and listening to the grandma talk about the Zodiac signs. I think you could have done one of two things:

1) Cut some of the dialogue out of that scene and added a little more action in the scene (having character turning in a different direction, nodding animation if you can pull that off, etc.)

2) Give the player the chance to read this stuff optionally (ex. Doing what most RPGs do and putting all the history into a book); take a different approach in your intro scene to establish the three characters.

Speaking of the characters, there wasn't anything unique about them. They didn't seem to display much personality or emotion. A lot more could have been done to add depth to them.

It really wasn't worth buying any weapons because they only increased your ATK by 1 point. The money could have better been spent on elixirs. I think you need to balance this out a little more.

Like DW said, some of the cutscenes felt rushed and the character's motives didn't seem very realistic ("Hey! A bunch of suspicious looking characters! Let's follow them!"). And of course, I think DW helped in explaining what should be done with the Mortimer scene.

There could have been a lot more environmental sounds. Like during that scene when Autumn was standing outside the mansion.

And you don't have to listen to me on this, but I don't think you should be reusing the Tales of Symphonia songs. What especially bothered was how you used Yuan's theme for that one robed guy you fought (forget his name). I believe that if you're using a tool like RPGMXP, you should try adding unique theme songs for some of your characters. If you're not confident that you can do one yourself, there's plenty of people over at RMXP.ORG that could help you in that department.

Okay, enough of the negative. Onto the stuff I liked.

I loved what you did with the battleback graphics. I'm planning on doing something like that myself (only I hope to use more animated battlers).

Some of the environments looked kind of pretty, too. I loved the forest (The one where you get the Panpipe).

Anyway, I hope I wasn't too harsh in my review. This game has a lot of potential. The idea behind it is very interesting and can branch out into several themes (destiny, unjustly stereotyping people, etc.). I just think that the characters and the story need a little more fleshing out.

[The Smurf]

Give the player the chance to read this stuff optionally (ex. Doing what most RPGs do and putting all the history into a book); take a different approach in your intro scene to establish the three characters.

I've considered doing this, and probably will.

It really wasn't worth buying any weapons because they only increased your ATK by 1 point. The money could have better been spent on elixirs. I think you need to balance this out a little more.

Most of the database stuff is under constant construction. None of that is permanent. I try to do most of the story stuff first before really getting into the details about stats.

There could have been a lot more environmental sounds. Like during that scene when Autumn was standing outside the mansion.

I will look into it.

And you don't have to listen to me on this, but I don't think you should be reusing the Tales of Symphonia songs. What especially bothered was how you used Yuan's theme for that one robed guy you fought (forget his name).

I'm sure I've stated before that the Tales rips are placeholders until I finish writing all custom music. If memory serves me correctly, the only spots still using Tales rips are the hideout and the battle music. Everything else should be completely custom by me.

Some of the environments looked kind of pretty, too. I loved the forest (The one where you get the Panpipe).

Glad to hear it. I've always thought my strongest skill with the software was mapping/environments.

And by the way, if you're only in Eulica Forest, you still have a ways to go.

Thanks for the input.


-the smurf

[Neo Samurai]

I'm sure I've stated before that the Tales rips are placeholders until I finish writing all custom music. If memory serves me correctly, the only spots still using Tales rips are the hideout and the battle music. Everything else should be completely custom by me.

Ahh...all right. Sorry if you were offended by that.

And by the way, if you're only in Eulica Forest, you still have a ways to go.

Oh really? I'll go check it out. ;D

[The Smurf]

link05 said:

I'm sure I've stated before that the Tales rips are placeholders until I finish writing all custom music. If memory serves me correctly, the only spots still using Tales rips are the hideout and the battle music. Everything else should be completely custom by me.

Ahh...all right. Sorry if you were offended by that.

No offense taken.

Enjoy the rest of the demo!


-the smurf

[Neo Samurai]

I actually have finished the demo.

The makings of the alchemy system look interesting. I've always liked the 'design your weapon' concept.

And I'm sorry to make another complaint (It's not that big of a deal and can be easily fixed), but I think you need to make the party members a little more diverse in battle. They all seemed to me to have the same skills (a part from them being different elements). You don't need to completely rewrite their skills, but try to make them all have their own special set of skills (ex. one person is the healer, another a fighter, etc.). It certainly helps to mix it up and give each character their own task to do. Of course, from your earlier post, it seems like you're working on this too, right?

Overall, this project has a lot of potential. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you pull off.

[Dungeon Warden]

Speaking of which, this demo is over five months old. When are we going to see an undated version for the demo? I'd like to see some improvements in the characters and weapons, as well as most of the other problems fixed.

How much time do you devote to working on this game? I''m just wondering what the likely hood is that you'd actually finish it.

[The Smurf]

dungeonwarden said:

Speaking of which, this demo is over five months old. When are we going to see an undated version for the demo? I'd like to see some improvements in the characters and weapons, as well as most of the other problems fixed.

How much time do you devote to working on this game? I''m just wondering what the likely hood is that you'd actually finish it.

The thing is, sometimes I feel like working on the game obsessively, and that's when stuff like screenshots, demos, and updates happen. Sometimes, something else gets my interest for a while. I haven't touched the game since November or December, but I have thinking about it lately and am probably going to pick it up again soon. Once the semester is over and exams are done, probably. The first thing I'll do is look into database info. I've updated the Mortimer scene and added an extra event to the hideout, so the next thing I'll do is tweak skills and stuff.

I have every intention of finishing the game, but I have no idea when or how long it will take. I'm currently a senior in high school and I'll be starting college in the fall, so I may not be able to work on it as much as I'd like. But I still plan on finishing it. The only thing I can do is remain optimistic that I'll get at least one more completed product out.

As for a new demo...I'll try to put one out as soon as I can, but I'm not going to make any guarantees. We'll see how it goes.


-the smurf

[Neo Samurai]

I know exactly how you feel. Some days, you're really psyched about working on your project. Other days, you feel indifferent. I find the best thing to do is work on it even if you don't really feel like it that day.

I'd say spend at least an hour a day working on your game. This could be anything from working on your story to designing the gameplay.

If you're accomplishing something, you'll feel satisfied, and that will modivate you to continue.

So, good luck and all that.