Cast Aside (Episode 1&2)

[Kain Nobel]

I'm really digging this game so far, but the enemies in the first level are too hard (considering I don't know WTF I'm doing control-wise sometimes), it almost seems as if I would need a real controller to play this game in later chapters.

I'm starting to get used to it, but I keep having problems getting stuck in the "Skill" menu after assigning a key. It seems as if I assign a single key its fine, but if I 'accidentally' assign more than one key its like I can't exit out (or maybe theres a magic button I'm supposed to use, I donno.)

This is the first time I've ever seen any kind of Particle engine being used, did you write the partical engine? Its really neat, they way its used in the Title and the way its used to set the houses on fire in the first scene.

As far as ABS goes, I haven't played many ABS styled games outside of maybe a couple Portuguese games, and Quintenessence, but I'm kinda taking a liking to your style of ABS system (even though its sort of confusing still, but thats only because I just barely started your game.)

However, the first set of monsters should've been alot easier (for people like me who still don't know what they're doing). It kinda sucks I can't get past the first 'boss' type monster (the dragonfly thing), because I keep getting caught in that wirlwind attack and can't escape it to get a good shot. Is there a way to break out of the wirlwind?

I plan on playing through the rest of within the next week or two, so hopefully I don't forget and get too busy to come back and drop you some more feedback. Great job so far :thumb:

 

[Anaryu]

I have the eerie feeling that post was intended for a different thread. (Like the World Outside thread instead of this one?)

To answer your questions though, the tutorial should set you up with a pretty good set of skills to use. The early monsters are best defeated using your Flame Arrow initially, and mix in some of the Gust when you can.

The Dragonfly is most easily defeated by using your Gust to keep him away; if you have trouble timing it so so that the gust blows him away before he sucks you in, just skirt close to him and he should use and you should be able to escape.

Another tip is that if it IS proving a bit touch, you can change the difficulty in the Menu and lower it until you get more of a hang for the game.

 

[TamaThps]

I'm not sure if this has been brought to your attention or not but, after the puzzle where you get that crystal, where you have to fight the bats and other enemy's in the cave, I keep getting this error after I move the male character.

http://i533.photobucket.com/albums/ee33 ... taside.jpg[/img]

 

[Anaryu]

That's the first time I've heard of that one, can you send me your save file somehow? I haven't been able to make the error repeat and I'd definitely like to ensure it's fixed.

 

[TamaThps]

well I ended up getting past that part. That error probably happend to me 3 times, it crashes the game each time as well.  I think that it was if you move the guy character to the left side and try to have him face east.  It was only when you move the character and chose his direction.  Since I'm past that part I don't think my save file will be much help.

 

[Shin Migumi]

i'm really liking this one. it's very fun and enjoyable to fun to play. If you ever need help with, feel free to ask.

 

[Anaryu]

Okay, a series of edits, a fix for the issue TamaThps was having, and a couple of other fixes rolled up and re-uploaded! The link on the main post is updated with the newest version!

 

[ThePhoenixFeather]

Actually...the battle system i cool, but it gets boring and makes the battles really complicated and time-consuming

 

[Doctor]

Wow, that was actually great. Look for a full review in the next few days.

When''s episode 3 coming around?

ADD: Would you mind supplying me with a screenshot of battles, preferably the one with the zombies in the mine, I took one but accidentally forgot to save it.

 

[Anaryu]

Wow, that was actually great. Look for a full review in the next few days.

When''s episode 3 coming around?

ADD: Would you mind supplying me with a screenshot of battles, preferably the one with the zombies in the mine, I took one but accidentally forgot to save it.

I "should" be working on Episode 3, but I got sidetracked with two contests (finished a Sim-Shmup game called SkyE which I posted, and now working on a platformer in GameMaker due at the end of Dec 30th) but after those I plan to get right back into this full force.

It's also giving Yaoumei time to work on some custom tilesets and graphics which are going to be a big part of the next episode.

Here's 3 screens I took quick (thank heavens I had a save file right before the fight!):

http://anamei.net/files/images/castaside/Screen27.png[/img]

http://anamei.net/files/images/castaside/Screen28.png[/img]

http://anamei.net/files/images/castaside/Screen29.png[/img]

 

[Kyoru]

This looks downright awsum!

Downloading now (if my damned connection wud allow. Lol)

 

[Traverse]

Ahh... I remember this game. I played the Episode 1 demo once. A VERY long time ago. So long ago, in fact, that PhanXgames was actually still working when I played it. I'm thinking about a year or so ago, give or take a couple of month.

Thus unfortunately, I have to take Artbane's side on the waiting issue. The level of content delivered in Episode 2 is simply not something that should take a year to code. The battle system might be improved somewhat, the menu system might be updated, there might be a new character and a few more maps to explore, but to be frank, I've seen novels written in less time than this and I'm fairly sure that the scripts aren't quite as long as novels. Added to this, my old saves from Episode 1 were incompatible with Episode 2, meaning that I had to redo everything previously accomplished from my old game. While this did give me the chance to review all the changes made, it also made me reasonably peeved. I understand that there might not always be time to work on a hobby like this... but honestly. One would have to be extremely overworked to not even be able to scrape together a couple of hours in a YEAR to update a some scripts and make about three or four new maps that in altogether are only worth four thousand kilobytes of data.

A good game, but let us hope that future updates either: (a) Come faster, or (b) Incorporate more content, or best of all (c) Arrive sooner AND contain more.

Now for the actual content of Episode 2. I could infer that Episode 2 is extremely poor in standard from my previous paragraphs, but it actually isn't that bad - there's just too little of it. Episode 2 starts with a battle with two brigands who are trying to kidnap a young girl. The problem with this battle? The little girl keeps dying. Or at least she did until I realized that I was actually supposed to control her. Even after that it took a while. The main problem I'm seeing with the battle system is that it simply progresses too fast for any amount of strategic thinking to take place. Unless you want your characters to die quickly, you have to keep moving them and hitting at the enemy. There isn't much time to think about what to do after that. Just move, hit, move, hit, keep hitting or keep healing. Now that I think about it, I don't think I ever used skills at all. It just took too much time to open the menu. And as for the pause button... I couldn't find it at all. Not that I actually needed it in the Zombie battle, since I could mostly kill the Zombies without taking much damage from them.

Now let's rewind a little to the part about the skills. There's this lovely little set-up for learning skills and using them all scripted into the game. Looking at the information box and their uses makes skills seem pretty nifty. Problem is, when you are facing an overwhelming number of enemies during a battle (i.e. Zombies/Bats & Scorpions) or enemies which can shave off about an eighth of your HP with one round (read: Pirates), they just don't seem very useful anymore. Not when they have lengthy casting times and only hit an area from which the intended target could simply move away. Granted, the area skills are effective against the enemy hordes, but they're really only accessible by the time of the Zombie battle and those guys respawn. And as for the Pirates, the casting time ensures that Rayne is dead by the time the spell hits- and even if the Pirates went after someone else, the effect isn't quite good enough to offset the bruising the rest of the party takes. Not to mention that skills also take up MP to use.

Then we have the rope climbing game and the mine puzzle. Whether I liked these or not, they didn't take up enough time for me to consider them as anything but minigames - the mine puzzle is pretty simple once you complete the first round, requiring only minor variations for the second and third repetitions and the rope game can be skipped altogether. Sure, there are some goodies to collect for people who tried extra hard, but they're not really that worth it, when after all this, there is only one short battle left to complete before the end of the Chapter.

And that is the Zombie battle. Masses of monsters attacking you and the objective of the battle is to plug the spawnpoints. In comparison to the previous battles, this one was ridiculously easy. This is because the Zombies require only about three or four normal attacks each to kill, and not only are they fairly slow, their attacks also don't do an impressive amount of damage to my party. In theory, you can farm EXP here quite easily by strategically gang-bashing Zombies individually, but then again, why would you? After all the game ends about a minute after the battle.

Looking at this from a positive direction though, the menu upgrades and battle system add-ons do have plenty of potential. The only problem is that fights progress far too quickly for a player to explore all of these features and there are not enough tutorial and instructions for players on how to use the systems. The puzzles are pretty well thought out, though to me, they seem a little easy (or maybe that's just me). The mapping is superb. This is the one aspect of the game I can't criticise - the maps are most definitely superior to those a lot of other games I've seen (deliberately not mentioning any names). Music, I can't comment upon lest I incite the displeasure of the authorities. Scripting, I also can't comment on (though I am getting this feeling that the scripts were based on some public ones from the net). The storyline is intruiging and shows promise, though lacks noticeable suspense as of yet. The characters are fairly well developed but stereotyped as of now, though this is not necessarily negative .

In conclusion, this is a great game which is hampered by slow release time and improper pacing, but has excellent potential for development and may in time gain an increase in popularity and acclaim.

That is, if this game ever gets finished...

 

[Speedpaws]

Wow, I've just started playing this game and I have to say I'm really impressed. The battle system takes a while to get used to, but I like it. I LOVE the puzzles. Those are the kinds of puzzles RPG games need. The story is great so far, yet moves somewhat slow in the very beginning. Keep up the good work Anaryu!

 

[daniel17]

i played about 100 rpg xp maker games (love the engine), and i have to say, beside "dark eternal" and "last szenario"
this is the best one i ever played... confusing, but great story, the best characters i´ve ever see, nice puzzles, challenging fight-system... i´m now on the "ghost busters" mission, the game keeps crashing, maybe it´s the end of the game this far.
only one thing, why not making a .txt for help? especially i was missing a discription of the skills...
please, please, keep on working on this game !!

 

[Anaryu]

Hi Daniel, sorry for the late reply, someone mentioned this was actually opened again.

You're actually playing Episode 2.5, though I'm not sure how you got a link to it here! (The story past the zombie-cart fight is actually the first part of episode 3.)

Questions:
1. What kind of a "crash" is it having?
2. What do you mean missing descriptions of the skills? Just some or all?

This is still being worked on, we've recently started moving quickly on it again so we'll have the third episode done in the next week or so and fully released. (Check the first post of this thread or rpgmaker.net in a week or so, I don't bump topics when I update the games so I don't bump down new projects.)

 

[cordynasty]

I wonder if you realize this, but whenever I open it, it shows for a sec, then immediately closes out. And yes, I do have the font installed.

 

[Anaryu]

Hum. I just downloaded the one linked from here, and it doesn't close automatically on XP Tablet, Vista Home, or XP standard. The font wouldn't cause it to crash, it just wouldn't show up in the few areas it's used.

You mean that when you run the "Game.exe" it pops up and then immediately the window closes itself?

 

[cordynasty]

Yes, that's the symptom.

 

[MCsephiroth13]

I found a bug:

In the title screen, when you select Exit, it comes up with an error. Don't ask me why I went to Exit, but I did lol. It's good to take into consideration every possible thing.

Also, during that thunderstorm at the beginning, you should REALLY make less thunder and lightning because it's unnatural and, more importantly, annoying. Another thing, in the puzzle after the "Island Crawlers" fight, I don't know how to switch to Kael. That's all I have to critique because I can't get any further because I don't know how to switch to Kael. HOW DO I SWITCH TO KAEL!!?

 

[Anaryu]

Hold A (Z by default on keyboard) and pick who you want, there was a short note about it when you first get Kael on your team.

I think the "Exit" issue is fixed in my current version since I can't duplicate it (lots of back-end changes) but I'll check the older ones too.

cordynasty, I'm sorry but I can't duplicate the issue at all, had a couple friends download and try it too. You have the XP RTP install I'm sure, right?

Can you try it with this version and see if it still happens: http://anamei.net/files/games/CA-EP2.5.zip