Dragon Breeders: Omen of the Dark [RMXP]

[Dragonslayer14]

Dragon Breeders: Omen of the Dark

Spoiler: Story

Long ago in the land of Arcania, dragons and men coexisted peacefully until one day, war broke out between the domains of King Ashnard and King Baron.  Kingdoms of man and dragon wrought destruction upon each other, which tore the bond the people of Arcania had acquired among themselves until one day, a young dragon breeder rose up to find the cause of the war, not realizing his true purpose in the war.

Spoiler: Character Bios

Arthur
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Age: 28
Height: 5' 10''
Weight: 186 lbs
Class: Lancer
Bio: The main protagonist of the game and the only dragon breeder that you can control.  The king of Altair wishes for him to leave, with Arthur's life-long friend, Richard, to find what caused the war.  What he doesn't know is that he is destined to save the world.  As a dragon breeder, he has been taught how to control a dragon in battle and what to feed it to make it stronger.  His father, Alexander, was a famous knight and one of the most powerful in the kingdom.  He had taught his only son, Arthur, the ways of the lance, and a month later, while fighting against invading barbarians, was killed by an assassin.  Arthur's mother, Teresa, had died of disease two weeks after giving birth to him.  Arthur, whose life has been devastated by the loss of both his parents, decides to avenge his father's death by gathering information about the war to help the king of Altair end the war.

Richard
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Age: 28
Height: 5' 9''
Weight: 210 lbs
Class: Warrior
Bio: Richard is Arthur's life-long friend, who is told by the king to go with Arthur, is a seasoned warior with a serious, life-or-death demeanor about everything.  Richard, as a child, had lived in the village of Lathara with Arthur, and they had been friends since they met.  Richard's father had owned a battle school for aspiring axe warriors and he insisted that Richard learn to wield an axe and serve his kingdom when he got older.  At the age of sixteen, he was accepted into training under the king of Altair.  Now twenty-eight years old, the king of Altair decides that he should go with Arthur, since there is always danger around every corner.

Carla
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Age: 24
Height: 5' 3''
Weight: 143 lbs
Class: White Mage
Bio: Carla is a white mage which Arthur and Richard meet in Tunisia, an extremely populated desert town.  She has been taught white magic and healing arts since she was a child and has become popular through out the town.  She is willing to help anybody out in her town, yet she feels as though her healing arts are not reaching their fullest potential.  She decides to go on a journey to further her training, yet her parents and relatives will hear nothing about it, as she is not accustomed to physical combat.  Three months later, she hears of two warriors that are staying at the inn and goes to the inn to ask them if she can travel with them.  They, with some debating, allow her to join them.  Carla then goes to her parents one last time to ask if she can go under the protection of Arthur and Richard.  They allow her, somewhat reluctantly, as she is the best doctor in town, to go with Arthur and Richard.  She proves to them that she is more useful than they thought she would be to them.

The unique feature of my game is a dragon breeding system, made of only events and featuring 39 different dragons.  It's my own simplified version of the one found in Bahamut Lagoon (Japan) for the SNES.  Those of you who have played Bahamut Lagoon will know what I mean.  For those who haven't, it consists of special stones that you use, giving your dragon 1 point in that stat/element.  What you can level up includes the following: Life, Vitality, Strength, Fire, Ice/Water, Thunder, and Poison.  Once you get 10 points in a stat, that stat levels up.  Certain combinations of stat levels will change your dragon into a different type of dragon.  The different types of dragons mainly effect the skills that it learns, yet you get to buy skills for it that you don't have already.  The only forms that have stat changes are the Special forms, the last 3, with have the highest level requirements.

CREDITS
CogWheel
Ccoa
The Inquisitor
SephirothSpawn

NOTES
I am fully willing to take any criticism regarding my game and what I have decided to put in it.  As the icon says, it's my first game.  So I want to make it a successful first game!  Also, I am using mostly default RMXP settings, but there is going to be custom stuff put in it.  I just wanted to keep it fairly simple since it is my first game.

 

[Luminier]

You've got some pretty standard stuff here. Young warrior, his best friend and a girl(love interest too i bet) who are the only ones who can stop a war and save the world from certain destruction. Really, how many times have you seen this before? If you answer anything other than "lots", then I suggest checking out some more jRPGs. War suddenly breaking out between two kingdoms(races) which were on good terms is really cliche, and I can't think of an instance where the reason was anything other than "lolevil". Hopefully you have a better reason here. And the fact that Axel needs to "find out the cause of the war" makes it seem less like a war "just broke out" and more like one side launched a surprise attack on the other. There's a lot more that I could ask, but I don't want to delve too deeply since this isn't Concept Development.

The ages of your main characters is sickeningly young. Please tell me how someone can be a seasoned warrior when they are only eighteen years old. Seventeen is an even more ridiculous age. Why would the king ask a kid like that to find out the cause of the war? I mean sure, you could say it's because he's a "dragon breeder"(whatever that entails; you really should expand on what dragon breeders actually do, besides getting dragons to go at it, that is), but surely a more experienced dragon breeder would be better suited to find out such a thing, right? Rosa's age is a bit less of an issue, since she's presumably doing less physical combat than the boys, but would I don't think I'd trust my life to a seventeen year-old doctor, so why would people put their faith in a seventeen year-old white mage?

The names you have for things are also a little, uh, off. Axel is an okay name, but 'Ryash' sounds really dumb, sort of like someone with an awkward accent is trying to say 'rash'. Rosa is an okay name as well, but it instantly brings to mind thought of Final Fantasy IV's Rosa Farrell(who also joined the party in a desert town, i might add). Arcania is an immensely silly name for the world. Not only am I sure that it's been used countless times before, but it also basically sounds like "THIS IS A PLACE W/ MAGIC ANS DRAGONS". Also the name "King Ashnard" rings a pretty big bell, but maybe I'm just crazy.

Your screenshots are pretty shitty, to be honest. Having a screenshot of the "FINAL BATTLE" is a pretty dumb thing to do, especially since you're obviously not far enough into development to have that be an actual screenshot from the final battle, if that makes any sense. The screen of the inn-- which is what I'm assuming it is-- is laughable. You make use of the full 20x15 default map size for that whole room, which makes it pretty damn huge by RTP standards, and the guy is complaining about his room being cramped! And there's hardly anything in there anyway! And you world map is bad for reasons I hope I shouldn't have to explain. I suggest moseying over to the tutorial forum and checking out some of the sweet mapping tutorials in there, and also make use of the mapping improvement thread.

Sorry to say, but scripts don't really count as 'features'. That is to say, random scripts you found and decided to plug into your project aren't features. Anyone can use any one, or ALL, of those scripts in their projects as well. These don't make your game unique. Your "Dragon breeding system", however, just might. It sounds intriguing, but I don't want to go through the trouble of looking up information about an unrelated Japanese SNES game to find out just how it works. Please elaborate on how it works.

All in all, this is garden-variety RM project material. I understand that this is your first game, and you're probably new to the community, so you don't know the sheer mass quantity of projects with practically the same, well, EVERYTHING. I would seriously suggest making use of the Concept Development forum to help develop this game into something less standard. There, people could really help deepen your plot, give a few more dimensions to your characters, and pretty much make this into a better game. Of course you don't HAVE to, but it would help a lot more than the comparatively weak c&c that you'll get here in Project Discussion.

 

[Dragonslayer14]

Yeah, I understand what you mean.  That's basically why I posted it here so I could get some pointers on how to improve my game.  I will post everything I have in the concept development boards and get some info.  I will follow all your advice so I can make my game into a good one.  And yeah, I am pretty new to the community, so I guess I don't really know where to post my stuff and what to post first.  Thanks alot for the info and criticism.  No matter how badly I have developed my plot and no matter how many comments I get regarding how badly I posted/created everything, I will take it and make my game better with it.  I was honestly expecting it to not be so good, since it is my first shot at a game.  I will try to put in things such as more characters, betrayals, ect.  And yeah, I guess the characters are a bit young...and plain.

 

[Luminier]

I like your attitude. You don't know how many people get really sore over legitimate criticism @_@
if you'll just give the CD rules a quick read through, and fix up your post accordingly, I'll be happy to move this over there for you

if you don't feel like reading the rules(idr but they might be pretty long still), basically just expand on your plot, setting, and characters, remove the screenshots, elaborate on unique features, and get rid of the screenshots. then you'd be well on your way to getting some real feedback

 

[So fist]

FYI he can have a separate thread in cd that focuses on just his story.  Things will be cleaner that way without moving threads back and forth.

 

[Dragonslayer14]

I like your attitude. You don't know how many people get really sore over legitimate criticism @_@
if you'll just give the CD rules a quick read through, and fix up your post accordingly, I'll be happy to move this over there for you

if you don't feel like reading the rules(idr but they might be pretty long still), basically just expand on your plot, setting, and characters, remove the screenshots, elaborate on unique features, and get rid of the screenshots. then you'd be well on your way to getting some real feedback

Thanks, I was dissappointed because I didn't expect so much to be wrong with it, but I just want this game to reach it's fullest potential.  I have just now removed the screenshots and edited the character bios, going into much more detail on the characters' life and also making them about 10 years older than I had originally made them.  As for the story, I am kinda stuck and need some (or more like alot) of help to deepen it and make it meet the standard, and maybe more.   Also, I put in a description of the breeding system.  If there is anything that needs cleaned up, please let me know, as I am more than willing to make this good.  Plus, do you have any suggestions on how to make a good logo?  I have a wacom tablet and Photoshop so I could make one if you could give some pointers.  Thanks!

 

[Luminier]

FYI he can have a separate thread in cd that focuses on just his story.  Things will be cleaner that way without moving threads back and forth.

yeah i just thought about that :x

Dragonslayer14, sorry for the confusion, my bad. Would you like to have both a PD thread and a CD thread? if so you can just copy/paste from this thread and stick it into the other thread, then make this one more... PD-ish. or, if you don't want a PD thread, just do the first part. Sorry again for the confusion, it totally slipped my mind that you can have two threads.

 

[Dragonslayer14]

Not a problem, I actually just posted the story on CD, as that was the only thing that I was having trouble with coming up with.  I will gladly put my characters on there if you think I need too, though.  The mapping tutorials that you told me about are really good, but how would I make a good world map?  If there is a good tutorial for that, please let me know.  Thanks again!

 

[Luminier]

ok then. you want this PD thread and the CD thread right? if so just stick some screens up here, and you're set.

and yeah, I'd suggest adding the characters to your CD post. Even if you don't want to develop them anymore(though im sure you do), they'll help others to understand the story more.

and again sorry for the confusion!  :down:

 

[Dragonslayer14]

Okay, but I have a question.  What should I take screenshots of?  I will post some new screens immediately after I make them.  Thanks again, and don't worry about the confusion, I saw both posts at the same time.

 

[Luminier]

a screen or two illustrating the "dragon breeding system"(or whatever it was called), would be nice. maybe something interesting from the intro? something showcasing a witty line of dialogue, or a particularly well-mapped area would be good too. just no "final boss screens" :wink:

 

[Dragonslayer14]

a screen or two illustrating the "dragon breeding system"(or whatever it was called), would be nice. maybe something interesting from the intro? something showcasing a witty line of dialogue, or a particularly well-mapped area would be good too. just no "final boss screens" :wink:

Okay, I will post them as soon as I "get my ducks in a row".  Thanks again for the info!

 

[Dragonslayer14]

Updated the character bios, including Arthur's age, all their heights, and Carla's bio.