Legionwood *J-RPG with 15+ hours of gameplay*

[Dark Gaia]

Just a quick Update!

I have not forgotten Legionwood! I'm currently well into the production of the final release of the game and I'm also doing some minor adjustments to the balancing of earlier parts of the game. The final release will have a game play time clocking in at around 15 hours or so and will include the final dungeon and boss, wrap up the story and its loose ends and will feature the super deadly optional boss which all J-RPG games seem to include as standard.

I'm about 30% through the development of this section right now. This means I've completed about 2 hours of the new content so far. As this is the biggest update and the final release thus far you can expect it to take a bit longer to develop than previous updates, particularly the chapter 3 release. Never fear though; the game is still chugging along!

 

[benos]

Agree with the enemy damage, though while defending, I didn't get hurt. I wanna at least a easy type game at the start, then it shouldn't get that difficult, hard to grind if enemies are that hard in the well, even in that cave. I had to pack up and quit. But good story though. I want to continue this game if you didn't put the enemies in a tough position for people at the very start. :dead:

Update: Well, I suppose I was going to wrong area, the forest place and the cat sidequest gave a save/heal point, thanks. :grin: But a little easy enemy rate.

 

[Dark Gaia]

Yeah, a problem I've had is that people seem to be entering the well even though I display a warning telling them not to enter. The well is a sidequest intended to be tried later on in Chapter One when you both have Ark in your party and are at least level 5. I'm considering barring access to it until these requirements are met in the next release, to solve this confusion.

 

[Dark Gaia]

Update

Legionwood just hit 85% completion! I've just finished adding the final touches to the last town in the game (Makir) which has the final equipment and Tech stores. Now there are just three dungeons to be done along with the ending until the game is finished! Hold your breath!

 

 

[benos]

Well I'm on a sidequest in Selatan Cave anyhow. And heal/save points is a delight. Both are up level 4. Will try to level for 5-6. As the feeling of boss battle urges in my brain. :grin:

Spoiler

Oops, did I forget anything to revive myself with Ogre?

 

[Dark Gaia]

Yeah, it might be nice to take a Phoenix Tears to fight him, in case he does knock you out. Keeping up with your healing though, you should be able to avoid losing a character.

 

[benos]

No matter now, anyhow, I forget the AP spending thing, jeez, no wonder how was bad at battling easily. :pissed:

Now, all I need to do is a massive money up in the caves.

 

[Dark Gaia]

Yes, I've designed the game so that the AP spending is essential for keeping up with the battles. Your stats only have minimal growth without it. The idea is that you can define your own fighting style for each character.

 

[benos]

Quite confused with Canal play. A walk though would be nice right now.

 

[Dark Gaia]

Hi! The trick is to collect all the bits of wood that are scattered around, and use them to build bridges over the canals. Collect every one you see, as they are all used.

 

[Nickster]

I'm totally enjoying this game. I deal in XP, not in VX, so i don't have many critiques, other than the battles are slightly difficult. especially that killer forest dragon. its practically imposable to kill without some major, major item usage. especially when you're getting like 3 in a row. x_x

P.S. what are the solution to the wizard statue in the 2nd chapter? I put the green above and the red below. nothing happened.

 

[Dark Gaia]

The forest dragon's designed to be one of those monsters that you can only tackle later at a higher level. He's meant to be rare so unfortunately you getting 3 in a row is pure bad luck! It's a 1/11 chance of encountering him. The solution to the crystal puzzle is to first, have the two crystals swap locations (exactly) then push them up/down onto the adjacent tiles.

Glad you're enjoying it!

 

[Dark Gaia]

BIG Update (July 15th, 2010)

The final release of Legionwood is taking a bit longer than I previously thought, due to unforseen injections of schoolwork and the fact that currently I am not happy about how the earlier parts of the game compare to the new content; my latest playtest of the game has made me notice a lot of things that I want to fix. Thus, I'm taking the time now (even though the game is finished) to go back and rework the parts of the game I am currently unhappy with.

This is a major update on what I've done with Legionwood so far:

First of all, I addressed the start of the game and made a lot of the battles easier and more accessible. There are now more in depth tutorials on the AP system and how to use it effectively and enemies show a smoother difficulty curve; the easier parts of the late game have been altered to be harder while unusually hard parts of the game such as the Blackrock Cavern have been made easier. In my latest play test of the game, I passed Selatan Plains without much trouble at Level 2. Meanwhile, I cleared Blackrock Cavern only having one character KO'd at level 14. The problem with adjusting the balance of Legionwood however is that I cannot account for a player's AP setting; some settings will make the game easier, others harder.

Next on the agenda, the glitches. You'll be glad to know these have *all* been fixed, including the bug which made encounters turn off if you revisited Charn Castle in Chapter Three. I spent a lot of time reprogramming some areas and systems to fix these errors. I can't account for the yet to be released Chapter Four though; I have yet to playtest it.

Finally, the most glaringly obvious turn off about Legionwood is one that I am working very hard to fix; the writing. This problem comes from the game's long development time. I was a very different writer two years ago than I am now and I never went back to rewrite the old scenes. In my current playthrough I've been carefully examining each cutscene and scrutinising it by my current writing standards. Without sounding too arogant, I want to say that I think the writing in Chapter Four is excellent and the very best in the game. I'm currently rewriting the script and changing some key scenes such as Martyn's conversation in Hawkshire to seem more natural; it seems wierd that everyone simply accepted that Ark is an ancient god who created the universe so easily. A similar event occurs in Chapter Four for two other characters and I handled it a lot better, so the main reason the final version is taking so long to make is because I am rewriting nearly every scene - fixing spelling/grammatical errors, changing corny or badly written lines, removing instances of over exposition or repetition and adding more lines to certain scenes that are handled clumsily. This said though, Legionwood is not meant to be Shakespeare, it's meant to be a basic easily accessible, casual, cliched, bread and butter fantasy story - the writing's meant to be simple in some places and over the top in others.

 

[darkcieran]

well all things worthwhile take time. hopefully this wait will turn out a great game

 

[Dark Gaia]

I'm working hard to make sure it is... We'll have to wait and see how it turns out. I certainly hope people will enjoy it.

 

[Ancient Garden]

I look forward to seeing more, I really liked this game.

 

[Dark Gaia]

Well, the game's actually complete now, only the script is being rewritten which is taking some time...

Update

A fan known to me as "kken" has decided to design a complete range of hand drawn art pieces for use in Legionwood. They are of a great quality and he has requested that the game's release be delayed until all of the pieces have been finished so that they can be placed in the game for use in cut scenes and as backgrounds. Scenes such as the conversations between Lann and Alexis on the ship and the conversation in the Royal Tomb (as well as some scenes in the final chapter including the ending) use these art pieces and the game cannot be released until they are all completed.

Thanks for eagerly awaiting Legionwood! I promise you the full game will be worth the wait!

 

[moxie]

i noticed the last big update you made the difficulty curve more reasonable, which is nice. did this affect anything about the character customization, or lack thereof really? i love to sperg out over customization and making characters unique and stuff, so it looked pretty fun - only to realize the "character customization" options are essentially nothing more than an illusion, because if you do anything other than what "you're supposed to do" with the characters you get slaughtered.

i'll probably wait until the next version to redownload it and give it a try for obvious reasons, but i was just curious about the other thing.

 

[Dark Gaia]

Hi!

It's true in old versions of the game that characters had predefined stat growth patterns and were restricted in what equipment they could wield. In the past two versions that have been released however, that has been changed; characters recieve the very same (minimal) stat boosts upon level up, can all learn every skill, can wield every equipment and can all learn additional attributes such as being two handed etc.
You can design exactly how the characters play. Determine which stats they gain in, pick equipment that suits their fighting style, and teach them skills that work with their stats. You can make Lann a mage if you want or you can make Liara a tank with high defense, it is up to you. In my latest playthrough, I made my Alexis emphasise Attack, Agility, Critical and Accuracy, occasionally boosting her Defense a little too, and I've done fine. You can feel free to spend AP on whatever customised stats you want, but remember that you also need to spend on basic things such as Defense and Speed too, for example if you have a mage character who wears very light armor. Basically, you need to try and compensate for weaknesses as well. It's a bit hard to do so for some players, so the game will come with a guide for making a few character types that work. Like any game with customisation, there will always be character setups that don't work.

The main concern with the difficulty curve was that because I had eliminated the predefined character growth, they were not gaining enough Agility to keep up with the enemies. Thus, I fixed this. The characters are in the current version essentially blank slates which you can customise.

 

[moog]

How is this a J-RPG? Was this made in Japan? I guess im basically asking if you are Japanese.

Legionwood features a massive world filled with adventures and side quests, and is expected to contain over 20 hours of gameplay and five story driven chapters.
While it isn't revolutionary and contains gameplay that is for the most part bog standard RPG fare, Legionwood is designed to be that way; familiar and fun for RPG fans looking for a casual game to play.

ill be honest, ive never been a huge fan of your games, no offense, but after reading this I might download and play this. I dont mind so much that the game be ridden with basic gameplay or old school pacing and what not, but if it turns out to have a cliche dialogue or feel I might not enjoy it. Based on this, though I feel that youre being honest to the player so they know what to expect, and that should draw them in. I'll give this a whirl later this weekend!