[First game] Tales of Youth (working title)

[befrazzled]

Hopefully I'm doing this right... I read the rules, so unless I made a really stupid mistake, I should be fine?

Note: This is my first game and all but that does NOT mean you have to take it easy on me. I want your HONEST opinion (even if it makes me cry :tongue to make this the best "first game" it can be! Please give me whatever constructive criticism that pops from your fingertips to the keyboard to a new reply. Now, without further ado...

Tales of Youth (working title)
What really stands in the way of turning back time? Nothing... when you have the fish. That's right, one little fish can cure the 'disease' of old age. One little fish that can give you your life back. So what's stopping someone from obtaining it? A long - and dangerous - journey.

Story

Spoiler

Lizah Hadaldi is sick of living in her hometown of Okarra. She's sick of the same old view out her bedroom window, the same old events, the same old people. She wants a change. Lizah decides to leave her town behind and find somewhere she can experience a wonderful life. She arrives in Garrold and everything seems just perfect. She meets a powerful mage named Baldwyn William, where she learns of the Youth Fish. It's a very powerful fish and Baldwyn - being ninety-three - simply must have it! In exchange for schooling, Lizah embarks on the quest to find the mysterious fish.

Female lead?

Spoiler

So who, you may ask, is this female lead? She's a mage (who's slightly rusty) that goes by the name of Lizah Hadaldi, hailing from the medium-sized town of Okarra. There's nothing special about Okarra. Her -real- parents are still alive, her town wasn't destroyed by so-and-so, who Lizah wants to get revenge on. Okarra is simply just her childhood town, which she got bored of. Although, her beloved dog did get run over by the king's horse-drawn carriage, which she was slightly bitter at, but he bought her an even better dog! Anyway, no, she simply wanted to experience the world outside of Okarra. She ventured off into the world where she came upon the town of Garrold.

Characters

Spoiler

Name: Lizah Haraldi
Age: 25
Weapon(s): Start off with a simple Mage Stick.
Brief Description: Lizah excelled in magic when she was younger, but due to infrequent use of it, she lost some of her ability. The question is: how much ability does she actually have?
Occupation: Mage


Name: Daelis Graffner
Age: 26
Weapon(s): Simple sword. Several different weapons to choose from (daggers, swords, hammers, axes, etc.)
Brief Description: Daelis was raised as a fighter and was treated badly by his father as a 'learning strategy' to live up to the Graffner name. This has blocked Daelis' mind off away from others, shutting anyone out who tries to get him to open up, but has grown a soft spot for his old childhood friend, Lizah.
Occupation: Fighter


Name: Lumina
Age: 20
Weapon(s): Simple archer bow. (There will be different objects to use in place of arrows including: knives, nails, thorns, pebbles, etc.)
Brief Description: No one really knows about Lumina. She just randomly walked into town one day and settled in. Will this be one of several subplots?
Occupation: Archer/Hunter

More coming soon!

Features (that I'm hoping to do)

Spoiler

-An as unique as possible story line and subplots.
-Dialogue and text isn't your average game's. My first language is English and I'm a little grammar/spelling obssessed. I'm not perfect, but I will try to get as close as possible.
-Cooking/Alchemy system (not sure how I'm going to do this as I haven't gotten to it yet) *Will require a cutting board and pot respectively.
-Sideview battle system (since I think it looks cool)
-Jumping, swimming, climbing, pushing, etc. Just hit action key at correct place.
-(sort of) Player owned houses (your first goal is to find a house to settle down in. You provide the mayor the correct amount of money and the house is yours, opening up a bed to sleep in as well as cooking/alchemy places.
-Mining, fishing, farming, foraging. *Each requires a different object. (These will be used for the main quests, especially fishing since it IS a FISH you're trying to find.)
-Quest system. Will show detailed quest log for main quests and side quests. Main quests have to be completed to finish the game, whereas you'll be asked random favors from townspeople in return for a reward.
-Sectioned inventory. No searching through a long list of stuff to find the thing you need.
-Pet system. Go to the pet seller in a town and buy one and it will appear in your house. Press the action key to add it to your party. If you don't, it will continue to stay in your house, allowing you to pick which pet you would like. Might do something where you can make the pet leave your party, causing the pet to go back to your house
-Caterpillar system

Screenshots (Not final screenshots, some stuff needs to be worked on. Please give me constructive criticism on these, but I think they are pretty good for being my very first try at mapping. I will listen to your advice, unless I wanted something that specific way, but I doubt that will happen very much if at all :smile

Spoiler

Inside Lizah's house

Cutscene upon entering Garrold. I know the map is bare to the right, but I haven't worked on that yet :smile:. Needing the most help with this map!

Talking with a townsperson.

The great Baldwyn William's house. My favorite screen shot so far.

Thank you for reading! I hope you like it and if not, please give me feedback to what I can change :grin:

 

[friend]

Today seriously isn't my day, I've spotted 2 games involving crystals already

-An as unique as possible story line and subplots.

^lawl that, why? See take a look at my rant:

Why dont people use something similiar to crystals BUT NOT crystals?

Now don't tell me you are lazy
Few ideas:

Dog
Cat
Chicken
Mouse
Clothing
A person
Computer
King
Queen
... and so on...

And you mapping, many people always forget the edges, they may not be important or noticeable, but it isn't pleasing to the eye.

-Dialogue and text isn't your average game's. My first language is English and I'm a little grammar/spelling

are you comparing yourself to people without good english?

-Quest system. Will show detailed quest log for main quests and side quests. Main quests have to be completed to finish the game, whereas you'll be asked random favors from townspeople in return for a reward.

I hope there is no ridiculous side quests.

(of course this had to have a dungeon! Come on, it's tradition :tongue.

It might be a tradition, but I don't agree with it.

Her -real- parents are still alive, her town wasn't destroyed by so-and-so

I'm glad of this, it isn't that hard to avoid this cliche

So... this game, like with ALMOST every game, HAS POTENTIAL.
So if you don't agree, don't mind me.

 

[Red_blue]

Im not trying to be offensive in any way but it seem that when ever you see a thread titled "my first game" it seems you also find Crystals, and MMo features that have little to no real value towards a plot(which usualy isnt that well thought out). I don't expect to see some amazing work on anyones first try...*flash back to my first game* AAAAGGGHH the horror. I just hope your open, and ready , to criticizm.

ON to the criticism.

I like your Attempt at originality, but really, shes a 19 year old girl ready to see the world? I can see this happening but to go on a dangerous adventure that has yet to be crossed by anyone...The likely hood of some random Mage girl that has hardly any exp (being only 19) being able to do what some of the worlds greatest goods and greatest evils could not! Not saying its a HORRIBLE idea, just saying it could have some more work put into it.

You really didn't show us very uch, only one paragraph so I don't have much to critque on. If you put up a little more info then I can give a bit more criticizm.

Hope I helped and can be of help later!

 

[befrazzled]

Thanks for not being too harsh on my first two feedbacks lol.

^lawl that, why? See take a look at my rant:

Why dont people use something similiar to crystals BUT NOT crystals?

Sorry, I'm too lazy to change it. Lol, only joking of course :smile:
Yes, I was thinking about it and I wanted to change it anyway. For now let's call that a placeholder, at the moment I'm trying to focus on finishing the first town map :smile:.
This project is very early in development.

And you mapping, many people always forget the edges, they may not be important or noticeable, but it isn't pleasing to the eye.

Can you go into more detail about this? It'd be very very helpful :smile:.

are you comparing yourself to people without good english?

Actually, yes in a way. I'm not criticizing them or anything, I just hate seeing wonderful games having all the grammatical and spelling problems in them. Is very easily fixable, even for non-English speaking people. I'm hoping my game will be as free as that stuff as possible.

It might be a tradition, but I don't agree with it.

I was actually thinking of changing the fact that it's a dungeon. I will include a dungeon most likely in the game, but if I do, it'll be optional. I'm actually thinking now having someplace with waterfalls and all that replicating some kind of Fountain of Youth. This actually brings a new idea in to my head, that instead of a crystal, it's fish swimming around in the lake under a waterfall and when the player tries to take one (hence implementing fishing as not just a random thing to do), the final boss comes. I hope that didn't spoil anything... It's just an idea :smile:.

Not saying its a HORRIBLE idea, just saying it could have some more work put into it.

Yeah, I was also thinking about this earlier. The age has been a real pain. I think I will keep Lumina as 18, or up it just a bit. I have an idea for her. As for Lizah and Daelis, I think I will change their ages. I'm just not quite sure to what. You see, (and I should probably add this to the story info) Lizah meets a powerful mage named Baldwyn who sends her on this quest because he is ninety-three. So, he teaches her magic again in return for her doing this for him. I can't believe I didn't think of putting this in the story info! I'll add it right now :biggrin:.

As for the maps, does anyone have any other advice or criticsm?

 

[LostPetal]

Buying houses huh? Neat idea.

 

[feralninja]

Just a word of advice, get an anti lag script if you are going to implement housing, you'll need quite a few events to get it working, especially if you are going to make it able to move the furniture....

I would like to comment on your mapping, but i don't really have the time for that. (Especially since i need to show you what is wrong about them...)

A tip: Go to tutorials and find a few map making guides.

 

[befrazzled]

Just a word of advice, get an anti lag script if you are going to implement housing, you'll need quite a few events to get it working, especially if you are going to make it able to move the furniture....

I would like to comment on your mapping, but i don't really have the time for that. (Especially since i need to show you what is wrong about them...)

A tip: Go to tutorials and find a few map making guides.

Okay, thank you :smile:. I don't think I'll go as far as being able to move the furniture, though.

I would appreciate that comment :smile:. Especially since I don't have experience in mapping and I'm still trying to get the hang of the layers and everything.

I will do that. I have looked at a few, but I'll look at more :smile:.

 

[MukanshinBlack]

You're doing good so far for your first game. The other people pretty much said it all, so my tips for you is try to stay away from cliches. Look at the other games here and see what makes them original and fix yours up. Also see what makes them good and what you should strive for. Right now you got cliches and RTP, and that's not a good match. Good luck regardless!

 

[Jason]

First -
Don't use dark tiles for shadows like you have with the plantpot on the last screenshot.

Second -
Please don't use the lighter tiles to replicate light shining in through the windows, it looks like a triangle fog over certain squares, just leave them as normal, and if you want it to look REALLY good, do a show picture where there's light shining in that doesn't go UNDER tables and stuff, cause thats so unrealistic, lol.

Thirdly -
Too mny clichés as said, and atleast use some different sprites for the characters, RTP is nice and all, but games look terrible when thats all they use.

Good luck with the game.

 

[befrazzled]

First -
Don't use dark tiles for shadows like you have with the plantpot on the last screenshot.

Thank you for pointing that out! That was actually an accident. I meant to put the lighter tile there and I guess I just didn't notice it.

Second -
Please don't use the lighter tiles to replicate light shining in through the windows, it looks like a triangle fog over certain squares, just leave them as normal, and if you want it to look REALLY good, do a show picture where there's light shining in that doesn't go UNDER tables and stuff, cause thats so unrealistic, lol.

Thanks for that advice :smile:.

Thirdly -
Too mny clichés as said, and atleast use some different sprites for the characters, RTP is nice and all, but games look terrible when thats all they use.

I thought I put this in with the main post. I'm actually going to change the character sprites. Those are just placeholders, to test the game and give me time to find a truly good sprite I want to use :smile:. At first, I was going to use the sprite for the main girl, but then I decided against this and left it so I could test the game while I looked for a better one.
Thank you, though, for this advice :grin:.

New screen shots are coming soon :biggrin:!