Master of the Wind (Complete!)

[rataime]

Well, I figured that out because I was looking at the crafting screen, and this one displays the different bonuses you can get from the item. I didn't thought it could be an auto-state, actually.

And I must admit I checked the database to confirm what I thought, yes. Bad Rataime, baaad. Oh, well. But now I can see that it puts you in *blink* state, which gives you +25 EVA, ie less than +30 when using "Leapord's Fang" (sic). You might want to tweak the values a bit, to make it compelling, like +15 EVA + Blink.

Once again thanks for your close inspection of the game.

This game deserves it, clearly.

 

[Petros]

Okay, I'm going to climb out of my shell and admit it, this game is damn good. It's well made and has only one flaw and that being it's mapping. I hardly would admit it but your writing, especially of the dialogue is spot on. You've captured the essence of reality in your dialogue, something which many RPGs lack and even comercial RPGs lack too.

Anyone who knows me, knows me to be quite an arrogant bastard, especially when it comes to my own game but my hat's off to you. Your dialogue is very well written and the eventing is the best I've seen in a released demo.

Normally I wouldn't praise characters who are up against my own for an award but I especially liked the character of Bones, he seemed very original, especially with his sort of Beauty and the Beast sub-plot.

I can't wait to finish playing Arc II and then Arc III, it will give me a great sense of want for Arc IV.

Well done.

Well done.

 

[Verad]

Power-playing through the three arcs for the first time and having some of the most fun I've had playing any RPG, but I've run into a bug of some sort.

Spoiler: Shroud wants to get frozen inside of a wall

Stuck in ice dungeon, after climbing back up with the Baron to the room with the healing pool, I cannot return south. When I try to re-enter that particular room (it has the unstable ice) I automatically fall through upon entering and Shroud gets stuck in the treasure room below in the top half of the doorway.

 

[ArtBane]

Send me your save file and I'll see what I can do.

 

[Sarkilas]

I just finished Arc II, and am working on Arc III.
I loved both I and II so far; it never made me tired once, only stuff I had to do interrupted it.

How you've set up the game is amazing. The way you set up cutscenes, the ways people talk, the humor and of course the perfect dungeon designs. I'm looking forward to the next dungeons!

By the way, I have one question, I can't figure this out.

Spoiler

When using Finley's shoot skill (using mouse) to use the log as a bridge, it won't let me do anything else than permanently shoot those creatures pushing it back, even though it stops by those three rocks for seconds. What do I have to do? I can't move across it whatsoever.

 

[Volrath]

Ha Ha Ha.....it will take some creative thinking to get you through that part. Take a look at your surroundings. What else might you be able to shoot?

 

[Sarkilas]

Well all I figured was the frogs. Nothing special happened but a new tune. I have no idea...

EDIT: I tried to shoot that hole before, but now I found out I had to move further AWAY from it to get close enough. Quite logical..

 

[ArtBane]

Well all I figured was the frogs. Nothing special happened but a new tune. I have no idea...

Yes! You are the first person to report finding the frog easter egg! Congrats!

 

[Roman Candle]

Damn! I must have got it, but I didn't have the sound on at the time. Curses.

 

[Sarkilas]

Cheer! I'm happy now :P

 

[___]

Spoiler: Comments & Criticism on a particular game sequence

Well I've been playing through Arc I & II and been very impressed so far, but I'm at a stopping point I simply can't progress through and frankly I'm pretty irritated about it. In the Mansion on the "match the arrows to charge Stoic's bull rush" puzzle I simply cannot press the arrows fast enough. I've been at it for 45 minutes with absolutely no luck, to the point that I tried cheating (which I hate doing) by mashing buttons and swirling the analog stick on my controller, and that didn't even work.

Other than this one event all the puzzles have been logic and timing or at the very least rote memorization, but this is fast random reaction and not everyone (apparently) has the skills to pull it off, something you guys might want to consider. Other than that I've found the challenge to be right on par, the dialog and character development have been great, the boss fights are tough but possible. I just don't quite get the point of this one little sequence, which seems to detour from the angle the game has taken to this point. Frankly I'd be playing DDR or something if that's what I wanted to do.

Now I accidentally closed the game while switching windows, not thinking straight due to frustration, and upon reopening I realized my last save was way back before the fight at the ball. I screwed myself by rushing to talk to Geno hoping he'd have new weapons for me and got pushed into the next event when I was done talking to him, which is also something that needs looking at. I hadn't even thought to try saving since I assumed I'd have a save point coming up, so if it was possible to save after this my bad.

Anyways don't take my criticism out of proportion, you guys did a great job, but I'm done with this unfortunately. : )

 

[ArtBane]

Wow I am sorry to hear that. I never heard of anyone having trouble to that degree on the bull rush puzzles. It is unfortunate that you don't plan on continuing but it doesn't sound like there is much I can do about that. If more people think that the button input puzzles are too difficult I will think about making them easier.

 

[___]

Wow I am sorry to hear that. I never heard of anyone having trouble to that degree on the bull rush puzzles. It is unfortunate that you don't plan on continuing but it doesn't sound like there is much I can do about that. If more people think that the button input puzzles are too difficult I will think about making them easier.

After further reading through this thread it may be that my problem is my analog stick, which tends to be a little oversensitive, and if the case is that you must hit the arrows 5 times without error I may be erroring without realizing it, as I'm pretty sure I pulled that off quite a few times. In that case I'd suggest more obvious visual and audio queues for success/failure on each push. In any case I still think it doesn't sit in line with what you do the rest of the game with the logic and timing puzzles, which I've really enjoyed. Variety is good and all but I find paradigm shifts uncomfortable. Usually with an RPG I'm looking for something I can sit back and enjoy at my own pace without the demands of an action game, where I'm prepared to be alert and responsive. Take it or leave it : )

Besides that you guys have done a really top-notch job. Mapping is probably your weakest point, but it's sufficient in that it doesn't take away from the game or interfere with gameplay. It would probably benefit a lot from more fleshed-out tilesets and more attention to layering in the visual department, and sometimes the proportions are out of whack enough to interfere with suspension of disbelief. It's acceptable to change scales a bit between interior and exterior, and in interiors to fudge it a lot between rooms, but a few places like the church in Arc 1 the room sizes are so drastically different I spent a little time confused on how the different doors in the main room were connected. Your natural environments sometimes suffer from too much regularity, which is tough to avoid with a tile-based mapping system admittedly but some more variation in the lines and surfaces would help a lot. It's still above amateur but compared to the other aspects of your game it's not quite up to snuff. I haven't seen Arc III yet though and I thought the coast Arc II was a big improvement over the mountains in the natural environments department so you might be way ahead of me.

 

[ArtBane]

You could be onto something with the analog stick. I never tested it with a controller so I am not sure how well it works. If you were messing up there there is an audio cue that sounds. Every time you make a mistake it subtracts a point so if your analog was oversensitive it could of been holding you back. This is probably the case as the puzzle is not suppose to be that difficult. If you do plan on playing again, I would recommend trying it with the keyboard.

The mapping has greatly improved in the later arcs as we have gotten more practice. Back then I didn't put much thought into the scale of rooms but now I put a great deal of consideration into it making sure my rooms are correct in size. The outside environments have also become more various as we began to edit tilesets to fit our needs. Hopefully you will play long enough to see the improvements.

 

[rataime]

I didn't find the button input puzzles were hard (got nearly all of them on the first try), but I'm a Tetris fan...

You could possibly slightly slow down the game with each failure, to prevent those kind of problems from arising.

 

[Shiro]

Or, you can have two different ways to solve a puzzle. For example:

1) Bull Rush the wall with Stoic

or

2) Find the dynamite in the area instead, which forces you to fight a miniboss.

Have it so, if it's impossible to do any "action" type of minigames... there's a second way around it (which would be harder... but it wouldn't be an "action" type of minigame)

 

[___]

@ Artbane: with that in mind I am definitely interested in giving it another shot.

I also like the above two ideas. In general multiple solutions to a given problem are awesome just for the sake of replay value. But when you add to it the dimension of each solution requiring a different skill set that appeals to different kinds of players you really enhance their ability to find "the zone" if you're familiar with the concept, where the challenges of the game are perfectly met by the limits of their abilities. It's tough to find a balance when you're doing that though, as usually one route tends to be all around faster and easier and all players tend toward the path of least resistance. Anyways I guess that belongs somewhere in a discussion of game design theory, not in the MotW project thread : ) I'll stop in with more comments if/when I can get past this part.

 

[KitanaSanti]

I must be completely braindead tonight. I'm stuck on the ice block puzzle with Auburn in the forest/cliff area. I can get the block up to the third cliff area, but I can't seem to get the ice to the water in the third area!

P.S. I love Volrath and ArtBane for creating this wonderful game! Haven't had this much fun in a long time! (I rarely get stuck on puzzles too, more kudos to you for it!)

 

[sandgolem]

You're not braindead, that one's very tricky. Might even be the toughest puzzle so far. I'd give a hint but it's a great feeling if you figure it out yourself

Still looking forward to Arc 4 after a 3 month break, glad to see you guys haven't given up

 

[KitanaSanti]

I'd still really like a hint.