[BT] Outlaw City and Outlaw City Dark Past

[Anonymous]

I'll make a badge for him when I get back from vacation. Yes, we had a thread for completed games only, but then we had a bitchfest in Feedback about how we should have "higher standards" for that thread and about how 2/3 of the links were wastes of time. That doesn't really inspire confidence in having another.

 

[Volrath]

When an admin calls a thread a "bitchfest," you know it was ugly. Still, I remember that thread, and the "completed games" which inspired it. *shudders*

Anyway, congratulations Anaryu. Having finally finished the game, I will tell you that I am absolutely stunned that you got all this done within the time frame of the contest. The genre and story made it seem initially like it was just going to be five hours of city locales, but you effectively wrote in all sorts of fun other areas: the park, the canyon caves, the void: good stuff.

I echo the praise you've received about the battle system, though I should tell you that once I discovered "Arcane Break," everything became much easier. Thanks to the combination of that and Proto's "Kinetic Barrier Aura" move, I'm not sure I even took direct damage during the final boss fights. You mentioned that you were going to go back and beef up the story now that the contest is over, and I heartily applaud that suggestion. The story you have now is good, but there was very clear potential for more.

Congrats again on the win. I had a great time playing the game, and should us Academy members ever get organized, I'm sure you'll do well.

 

[Anaryu]

Yes, I had made the fatal mistake of beefing up "Arcane Break," but forgot to increase the "downsides" of the skill. In the newest release I DID fix the skill, bring the damage down a bit (not too much) and costing Mystic a much longer time to cast the skill.

Proto's main ability is in avoiding damage, the bosses at the end hit really hard and fast, so if you don't keep up some type of defense OR keep all the hate on Sahra with one or more of her defensive auras on, you can get creamed really fast.

Still, thanks for the feedback, maybe I'll look into putting a 1-2 round timer on the Barrier Aura skill to keep it from being over-spammed.

Any feedback on areas of the combat system that you managed to exploit or skills that proved useless is always appreciated, since I'm hoping to minorly improve that area a bit as well!

Re-production of certain areas and dialogue changes will be taking place after the RTP Project contest is over.

 

[sandgolem]

once I discovered "Arcane Break," everything became much easier

That skill was useful? One of the few I didn't buy thinking it was useless. Sounds like it was much more fun playing without it though

Still, thanks for the feedback, maybe I'll look into putting a 1-2 round timer on the Barrier Aura skill to keep it from being over-spammed.

There sort of is already with the SP Cost, though I suppose it can be gotten around with a few skills. Even pumped up without those Proto doesn't have enough SP regen to be using it every turn. Maybe make it cancel out any quicker SP regeneration stuff?

But if you change it too much, Impossible mode will definetely be close to it (without the broken skills I guess). Some of those enemies kept using attacks that killed/almost killed 75% of the people without barriers.

One combat exploit I saw that you might want to fix is barriers carrying over into the next battle

 

[rey meustrus]

Obviously people have gotten farther than I in this game, but...in the beginning, for some reason I can't do anything in the supermarket. There's no explanation, and the cashier just keeps saying "use the regular line biatch!" but I can't talk to him any other way than behind the counter...

 

[ryanwh]

You went to the market for milk, remember?
But yeah, considering its right at the beginning of the game, I think both the wardrobe thing and the milk thing should be more clear. Because the "wardrobe" isnt a wardrobe, its one of I think 3 identical shelves. You can find a real wardrobe on chopsuey's interior fusion in the download manager.

 

[Anaryu]

Hum, I shall look into clearing that; I can see why the wardrobe might be confusing, I figured the milk would be ok since there's only really one "refrigerated" area.

Maybe I should put Puzzle Papers in both area. :D

 

[ryanwh]

That much isnt needed, just a proper wardrobe in the room and maybe an inner narrative when the hero enters the market.

 

[Anonymous]

That wardrobe is by Ccoa, you can find it seperately in the tileset addons.

This game is frusterating. I keep dying, usually the longest time after I've saved as possible.

 

[Anaryu]

In the menu there's a menu to change the Difficulty. You can also save at any time, so you might wish to save more often.

If you haven't changed the Difficulty before, it will be set to "Normal" mode, which is fairly difficult by it's own right.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, I'm not an idiot. I have it on Easy already. I just don't feel like saving every five minutes.

 

[Wings]

I have it on Easy already. I just don't feel like saving every five minutes.

It is always good practice to save constantly in games. To go along with what Anaryu said, if you save more often then you will find that the game can be easier to complete (as you don't have to keep redoing things over and over).

 

[Twin Matrix]

I died 3 times with the game on Very Easy. >_>;

At first I had it on Normal... But those random knight attacks at the end, when you're going to Sir Bane... Those are just friggin' hard.

 

[ryanwh]

An autosave would be nice. Like, a button you could push without opening the menu to save automatically.

 

[Roman Candle]

Wow, I just played and finished it. It was great :lol: The first bunch of knights were simply annoying with their stamina attacks though. And from that point onwards, the normal enemies simply had far too much health. I ran away from almost all the knights in the park, as well.

Spoiler: By the way...

Is it actually possible to defeat the second form of Malum? The first one seemed too easy, and I realised (eventually) that at least the second one's hands wouldn't die...

 

[Rubymatt]

This game rocks way better than my entry.

I found a little glitch for you though.

When you're buying skills and using your CP, you select a skill and upgrade it, right? Then, while upgrading, you can press PgUp and PgDown to change to the next or previous skill, but the glitch is that this happens even if the next skill hasn't been bought meaning you can upgrade skills that you don't yet have.

Just helping out :D

 

[Twin Matrix]

Wow, I just played and finished it. It was great :lol: The first bunch of knights were simply annoying with their stamina attacks though. And from that point onwards, the normal enemies simply had far too much health. I ran away from almost all the knights in the park, as well.

Spoiler: By the way...

Is it actually possible to defeat the second form of Malum? The first one seemed too easy, and I realised (eventually) that at least the second one's hands wouldn't die...

The second form was very very very easy for me on the Very Easy mode. Much easier than any other boss and some random battles I've played. Arcane Lullaby and Nightglare the hands into sleep and kill Malum himself.

 

[Roman Candle]

I did it on normal all the way through, and I couldn't tell if I was supposed to be able to beat it or not. I kept using Arcane Break and Barrier Aura along with pleanty of explosions, beam pillars, etc, but nothing much seemed to happen. Eventually the thing woke up and did six horrizontal slashes in a row, which killed my whole party pretty much instantly ':|

And congratulations to Anaryu for making a game with RMXP which people can actually talk about strategies for :lol:

 

[Twin Matrix]

Horizontal slashes are easy. Just keep Kenetic Aura and Barrier Aura up by giving the robot points in Kenetic Aura Stamina Cost. And why use Explosion? It's a bad skill. Use Darkened Sky and then the one that follows (forgot name) for much more damage. Have Mystic do Arcane Break and then Arcane Lullaby the whole time. Have the main character (forgot name) do Dark Release, Dark Combo and Nether Power (if that's the name for the ATK+ suit skill) on Malum. Have Dark use Darkened Sky and that following skill the whole time, using Defend for easy Stamina. While waiting for Darkened Sky to be able to be used again, Charge and Double Charge for Beam Pillar (with full points in damage and accuracy). Easy. I just beat him on Hard. ^_^

Don't forget to give Dark and Mystic full accuracy points in Midnight Glare, Arcane Break and Arcane Lullaby. Also in Stamina Cost. Make Dark's priority #1 to Midnight Glare Malum if he wakes up, and sleep the arms between regeneration and waiting times for Darkened Sky. Don't forget to put all your points in Darkened Sky's and the following skill's stamina cost, damage (only for Darkened Sky's following skill) and casting time.

 

[spudalesca]

Where has this been all my life?

Great game, better than some commercial ones today even. I' m playing it now, and I just lost against Sir, something.....(You fight him after he lancer) on normal difficulty. >_>

If that wasn't bad enough, the last time I saved was the room with the crystals, so I have to fight the Lancer again. >_< Other than me failing to win, great game.