[FULL GAME] A Home Far Away

[Strangeluv]

Status: Complete

Playtime: About 7 Hours

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Plot:
A normal day in the serene village of Everdale. School's just been let out. The village is preparing for a birthday party. Mr. Ronedale has lost his chickens. Mrs. Apricot is baking a pie. And little Danais is consigned by his sister Farrah to buy a b'day present. Enter Skarsgaard, a local thief consigned by his boss to raid this serene village.

And then everything gets thrown into disarray. Danais is missing. Farrah has to go out in search of him and they end up in a town very far away from home! How are they going to get back? To make things more complicated, in comes a band of pirates, headed by Captain Grizzlybeard who is in a mid-life crisis, arrives in the port town. And the Mayor is suffering a migraine from demands from the townspeople: a clown needs cheering up, a young boy needs help wooing a girl, a shaman needs his monkeys returned, a thief needs to be caught, a merchant needs to be protected, and so much more!

How are Danais and Farrah going to find their way home in the midst of all this insanity?!

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What you can expect:
- A mildly tweaked battle system that includes a "Charge" and "Double Charge" system.
- Avoidable wandering encounters instead of random encounters.
- Some custom-made music.
- Loads of minigame-oriented gameplay, including fishing, knife-throwing, balloon-popping.
- "Quest log"-styled gameplay in the second half. Just think about Bomber's Notebook from Majora's Mask.
- One vibrant town in the second half instead of many towns, with many colourful characters you will need to interact with.
- A day/night system to accompany this town.
- Map and teleport system.
- A story with a sense of humour and heart.

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TRAILER:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b2UeJmfGSs
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Download: HERE! (26MB)
Includes a walkthrough/hint guide.

Just download and open the RPG_RT.EXE and play! No need for RTP!

 

[regi]

Hey, looks interesting, especially the fishing and balloon-popping minigames (you don't see too many of those executed well around here). The story's also nice and simple. I may give this a try sometime.

 

[GameBoy]

Music in trailer... O.O Holy shit I'm downloading this right now!

 

[mawk]

oh man, it's this game! I remember this from way back at gamingw. definitely some of the most solid eventing I've seen in a finished rm2k/3 game, and it did a good job of keeping the gameplay interesting. it's good to see it again! I'll give it another play in a little while.

 

[moxie]

All of the screenshots are wildly inconsistent - I recognize a lot of the tiles, so I'm guessing they're all rips? It's a bit jarring to have the entire style change from screenshot to screenshot. The minigames all look pretty fun and like they're got a ton of effort put into them, though.

 

[Daxis]

It was fun. A solid rpg, solid eventing, and nice tilesets once you get used to everything. A fair amount of custom content/graphics and shit. I remember playing it... >.<
Although I only got one or two hours in before I did other stuff and forgot I had it. I remember how cool that boss fight warning was though.

 

[seven]

I remember playing this a few years ago, it was pretty cool. The time system caused MASSIVE LAG though, so I had to quit. @_@
This is a new computer though, so it's definitely worth giving another shot. Hopefully I can beat it this time. c:

 

[Haydenap]

I'm playing this right now and it's one of the only 2k/2k3 games I've enjoyed. Although I couldn't help but notice that you were using FF Tactics PS1 graphics as battelers. None the less, nicely done.

 

[Strangeluv]

Hey, looks interesting, especially the fishing and balloon-popping minigames (you don't see too many of those executed well around here). The story's also nice and simple. I may give this a try sometime.

Thanks for considering it. There's a lot of mini-games in this game, some better than others, lol.

oh man, it's this game! I remember this from way back at gamingw. definitely some of the most solid eventing I've seen in a finished rm2k/3 game, and it did a good job of keeping the gameplay interesting. it's good to see it again! I'll give it another play in a little while.

Oh hey, you remember this from GW! That's cool. I'm glad you liked it back then. I haven't really advertised it well so it's been under the radar for a long time.

All of the screenshots are wildly inconsistent - I recognize a lot of the tiles, so I'm guessing they're all rips? It's a bit jarring to have the entire style change from screenshot to screenshot. The minigames all look pretty fun and like they're got a ton of effort put into them, though.

Yes, I can agree with the styles being inconsistent, as I've mainly used from Suidoken II, Seiken Densetsu 3 and Terranigma. The majority is from Suidoken II, however, I'd say. I guess the pictures I have posted are really ALL inconsistent and make the game look more of a mish-mash than it really is. Hopefully this won't deter you too much if you decide to play.

It was fun. A solid rpg, solid eventing, and nice tilesets once you get used to everything. A fair amount of custom content/graphics and shit. I remember playing it... >.<
Although I only got one or two hours in before I did other stuff and forgot I had it. I remember how cool that boss fight warning was though.

If you decide to give it another try one day, I hope you would enjoy it!

I remember playing this a few years ago, it was pretty cool. The time system caused MASSIVE LAG though, so I had to quit. @_@
This is a new computer though, so it's definitely worth giving another shot. Hopefully I can beat it this time. c:

Ah, yes, the lag in the second half. The complaints I've received for that are few but I tried to revamp the game a little here to get rid of it. Hopefully it works well now. It should work fine on newer computers. I've found that playing the game full-screen reduces lag a ton-load.

I'm playing this right now and it's one of the only 2k/2k3 games I've enjoyed. Although I couldn't help but notice that you were using FF Tactics PS1 graphics as battelers. None the less, nicely done.

Thank you for playing And yeah, I ripped FF Tactics graphics for the battlers. I thought they fit in fairly well and hope it doesn't get in the way for you.


Looking forward to hearing more feedback, comments/criticism from anyone! It makes me happy that some people remembered this game.

 

[Strangeluv]

Oh, here's some fan art done by Hima (USG: A New Beginning, Hello Panda, Grace's Diary):

And a few more videos:

Early Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hoN6VW97Zk

First 15 Minutes in 2 Minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbWzxMv5rbA

A Tour of Willow Town
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgySRUVbudk

Mini-Game Demonstration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBGh2mjC3QI

Enjoy, guys!

 

[gonewind]

[I can't believe it, it is the first time I managed to log in this site in like... two years?]

I finished your game not so long ago (found it on rm.net) and I enjoyed it fully. I'm not so much of a sucker for minigames in RPGs (since I suck at them...), but I enjoyed fully all those quests and exploring.
The plot was not your typical RPG and had some great characters (Captain Grizzlybeard ^^), but I think the two main characters kind of lacked. Willow Town was graet, not too big, but full of intresting things to explore.

Great game overall, you should consider having a sequel ^^

 

[So fist]

Hey Strangeluv. You might remember me as The Great Terror when I visited GW briefly. Just couldn't fit another community into the schedule. Anyway I played all the way up to the first boss so here are my impressions.

The sprites are cute and have a lot of personality which you take advantage of. Custom or not they are solidly implemented.

I really like the icons that come up when you find treasures and earn items from battle. Though oddly enough sometimes at the end of battle items like shillings or potions are sometimes announced in a little message, but most times they aren't and you just have the little icon come up on the game map.

I like the battle system perspective and the whole charging thing with the staff. It's different and I can see it being used well with different types of staves that do different things.

I ground to level five and walked into the first boss fight expecting a pushover and died there when he whittled me down to 33 hp and then just hit me with some random super attack that took exactly 33 hp away. I prolly would have beaten him if I zigged i.e. taken a potion at 50 hp instead of used my staff attack. He seems about the right amount of challenge at level five for a first boss, but that's ~7,000 worth of xp to gain which amounts to 35 battles that earn on average ~200 xp a piece. Each battle eating about two minutes so about an hour of grinding.

I also like that the shops are menu-less and you can just browse the items on the shelves.

The font you are using is not upscaling well at all on my computer. It's hard to read sometimes.

So far it seems pretty cute, but I think some more immersive details from the get go would be nice. I really love it when I can explore an entire map and interact with a whole host of objects to learn about the world and all the characters in it. Like bookshelves that have little bits of lore in them. A character's revealing comment about a picture on the bookshelf, etc.. So far the only RM game that I've found that explicitly reward wayward players who try to click on everything has been Tales of a Drunken Paladin.

Also the soundtrack has been great so far.

 

[Strangeluv]

@gonewind: Thanks for the comment! Glad you enjoyed the game and yes, that Danais and Farrah should be more interesting is a common complaint I have gotten. I hope it didn't affect the game too much for you.

@Augusto: Yeah, I remember "The Great Terror" from GW. I think I spoke with you briefly on IRC when this site used to be RMXP.org also. I'm glad you like it so far. You don't necessarily need to grind in the game. You should take advantage of your charged staff weapon and spells. Also the Regeneration spell is very good for boss/tough battles. As for the items that pop up after battle, those are "extra" rewards. So if the after-battle message says you got a Tonic and then you see the Tonic icon after you defeat the enemy, you've actually gotten two. These post-battle rewards occur at random. Hope the rest of the game holds up for you :smile: