Odyssey - Action Adventure RPG! Updated 10/12/14

[Ace of Spades]

I'm double posting. Fuck it. You have an amazing game there but christ is it difficult. With the defending not working properly I just barely managed to get to the spider boss, but after 4 fails, I couldn't quite push myself to beat it. Maybe I just suck at the game, but for the beginning of a game to be that difficult is not the best game design. That said, the game is amazing and I particularly loved the bow and arrow puzzles. Those were fucking awesome.

Was it really that difficult? Maybe because it's my own game and I've play tested the hell out of it, but I can usually run through it without dying. One thing I will say about defending is that it you have to be facing the attacker or projectile. I agree though it's not really that useful at the moment, other than specific areas in the game you'll need it, but I will work on making it better (perhaps it'll stun the enemy when they attack and you block). But honestly, you're expected to die a few times, hence the continue system which helps you start right back where you were. If you find yourself running low on health don't forget to heal by cutting down bushes and pots.

About the boss, have you found its weakness? Also, I wouldn't recommend the shield at all. I usually just dodge the projectiles. If you're having trouble, upgrade to the crossbow, and she'll go down with fewer shots, or go explore for the heart piece so you can take more damage. Final piece of advice, the two pots in the corner contain mana. Save those for when the boss is at half health, because she speeds up and you'll need the mana to keep up with her attacks.

Thanks for the compliments on the puzzles as well, I hope they weren't too hard or too easy, but I want the puzzles in Odyssey to reflect the items you gain in each dungeon. I enjoyed coming up with them very much.

This looks really slick. I typically don't like RTP stuff, but you pull it off well, and I like the active gameplay and utilitarian story. I also like your idea of restarting on the current map when you die and am gonna steal it. I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for the demo when you release it to the public.

Thanks for the interest! Steal away, I wish more games would implement some kind of checkpoint system. By the way, check you PM's, I extended you an invite.

Due to my slow internet it'll be another 10-15 minutes before it's downloaded, I'm actually excited to play it because this is a rare RMXP game in that I'm geniunely interested in the development of it, I hope it plays as good as it looks!

Thanks for the response, I can't wait to hear what you think.

If anyone runs into performance issues, please let me know. This was my biggest issue during development, but it doesn't seem to be a problem anymore. However, I know some people are on slower computers, I just want to make sure Odyssey is playable and enjoyable for everyone.

 

[bacon]

you might want to put the demo up to the public mainly because having private things is cool but if you want feedback from everyone it might just be best to put it on the page because this looks really nice.

With that said, I am curious on how you do the zelda/adventuring aspect of the game.

Your mapping could be better its a little bland in some areas like the outside areas but this is just from the screenshots so I really dont know.

It looks good for sure.

 

[Jason]

Okay so I've been playing it, well, I WAS playing it earlier, and I've got to say I loved the introduction y'know with the boat and the book and everything, it played really well too, loved some of the puzzles in it, and what I really did like was in the caves, those six legged lizard thingies (I don't know what they are, the red and blue things...), how they come up from the floor, and burrow back down when you're out of range, that was actually really cool, especially when you have to kill some to get through the door.

I didn't explore too much, but managed to get the extra heart, I loved that road "puzzle", where you have to choose the right path, it reminded me of Devil May Cry 4 (Except that fustrated me...)

Overall I'd say the game was really great, but I did run into one... major problem...

Lag!

The entire time, the game was running between 10-15FPS, except in smaller areas like the weapon shop where it went up to around 20FPS (These are just by eye and from experience with slowdowns before), now, my computer isn't really bad, infact, it's pretty darn good since it can still pass the "Crysis Test" (Run Crysis on high/ultra, lol), so I don't know why it's lagging, then again there's quite a few RMXP games that've done it, which kind of sucks, especially with one as good as this.

tl;dr

The game was great, but the lag sort of hurt my experience with it.

 

[Ace of Spades]

you might want to put the demo up to the public mainly because having private things is cool but if you want feedback from everyone it might just be best to put it on the page because this looks really nice.

With that said, I am curious on how you do the zelda/adventuring aspect of the game.

Your mapping could be better its a little bland in some areas like the outside areas but this is just from the screenshots so I really dont know.

It looks good for sure.

The point of making the demo private at first is in case people are running into major issues or bugs that can be corrected before a public release. The demo will be available to the public shortly though, as promised. The mapping admittedly is not the greatest, but I believe it to be above par from what I usually see. As the sole developer, you can only put so much time into making a map before realizing there's a million other things that need to get done as well.

Okay so I've been playing it, well, I WAS playing it earlier, and I've got to say I loved the introduction y'know with the boat and the book and everything, it played really well too, loved some of the puzzles in it, and what I really did like was in the caves, those six legged lizard thingies (I don't know what they are, the red and blue things...), how they come up from the floor, and burrow back down when you're out of range, that was actually really cool, especially when you have to kill some to get through the door.

I didn't explore too much, but managed to get the extra heart, I loved that road "puzzle", where you have to choose the right path, it reminded me of Devil May Cry 4 (Except that fustrated me...)

Overall I'd say the game was really great, but I did run into one... major problem...

Lag!

The entire time, the game was running between 10-15FPS, except in smaller areas like the weapon shop where it went up to around 20FPS (These are just by eye and from experience with slowdowns before), now, my computer isn't really bad, infact, it's pretty darn good since it can still pass the "Crysis Test" (Run Crysis on high/ultra, lol), so I don't know why it's lagging, then again there's quite a few RMXP games that've done it, which kind of sucks, especially with one as good as this.

tl;dr

The game was great, but the lag sort of hurt my experience with it.

My biggest fear, damn. I was afraid of people having performance issues. This mostly comes from the limitation of RMXP as a game creator. My computer isn't the greatest and I still manage to run it at 35-40 FPS. I will need to wait for more feedback to see if lag is going to be a widespread issue.

Until then, some suggestions to help with lag:
Exit out of other applications, including web browsers before playing.
Play in full-screen mode. (I know you mentioned you have a wide screen monitor, but there should be a setting to keep the aspect ratio the same when in full-screen.)
Press F1 and make sure Smooth Mode is on, under general settings.

Thank you for the other comments as well. The snake enemies were by far my favorite to make, although they were a pain to animate. I'm glad you found the heart piece too, I wasn't sure how many people would be able to get it.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone managed to beat the boss yet?

 

[Necrile]

Yeah, I just beat the sonofabitch spider. I actually like the difficulty, don't mind my bitching. Just realize that your game isn't easy, and work on the defence system a bit. At the moment, its completely broken.

 

[moxie]

I'll give it a download as soon I have the time, my computer's pretty terrible so you might be able to get more feedback concerning "performance issues" from me. ;o

 

[udivision]

Have you thought about adding a third type of equipment? Like an accessory or badge or pin? I know since it's a Zelda game, there's a lot of linearity in acquiring weapons, shields and in some cases, heart containers. But if you made a separate type of item like the ones I mentioned, you could make special enemy drops for people who like looting in ARPGs.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Have you thought about adding a third type of equipment? Like an accessory or badge or pin? I know since it's a Zelda game, there's a lot of linearity in acquiring weapons, shields and in some cases, heart containers. But if you made a separate type of item like the ones I mentioned, you could make special enemy drops for people who like looting in ARPGs.

As of now, there's only the sword slot, and two free hands to equip whichever items you want. However in the complete version of the game, there are going to be a couple hidden relics throughout the world that are completely optional and are going to take a little bit of searching for. Relics essentially give you passive abilities. For example, there's the Lucky Coin that increases the item drop rate from enemies and bushes. There's another relic called the Soul Stone, which will heal your health a bit as you kill enemies. The relics stack and can be all used at once, meaning if you find all the relics your character should be pretty buff by the end.

 

[regi]

Great work so far! I can definitely feel a Zelda vibe from all those puzzles and enemies. Apart from a few problems, which I'll detail below, you pulled it off quite nicely.

- Either I'm too impatient, or the walking speed is too slow. Is that the default speed? It seemed slower in comparison to other games, but that might be because I'm used to dashing through areas of my own game. For an exploration-based game, however, I would at least look into including a dash feature.

- The ABS is the closest I've seen to a Zelda clone (and a damned good at it). My only complaint is that damage is almost inevitable. Monsters aren't stunned or knocked back upon hit, and some of them (slimes) can do area attacks, so the only real aspect to battles is mashing the sword key until they're dead, and healing up later (which leads to my next point...)

- I haven't found any consumable potions yet, but as far as healing go, it's pretty easy to get to full health. Methinks your bushes and pots are almost too common (though I suppose it's good to have more in a beginner area; as long as you lessen them in later dungeons). The fact that you can reenter a map as many times as you want to destroy bushes and reap the rewards makes getting hearts and gold too simple for those patient enough to try. I don't know if this is feasible, but you could try making the bush reappear after a set time limit, or only when you enter and leave a new larger area (e.g. mines -> forest).

- Be careful with map boundaries! Some areas (the abandoned house in the forest) have open boundaries that are dead ends. This is rather upsetting to an explorer, especially given the slow walking speed. If you're going to have map ends transfer a player, make sure ALL map ends transfer a player; block off the rest with trees or impassable cliffs so the player won't get confused.



I've only just made it to the mines, but you can tackle these preliminary critiques if you'd like. Looking forward to seeing some great puzzles and battles to come!

 

[Necrile]

Yeah thats basically what I thought as well. Even though it is hard, regi, I would push yourself to beat the spider boss. It's a lot of fun.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Excellent critique, thank you for taking the time to give some input.

- Either I'm too impatient, or the walking speed is too slow. Is that the default speed? It seemed slower in comparison to other games, but that might be because I'm used to dashing through areas of my own game. For an exploration-based game, however, I would at least look into including a dash feature.

The walk speed is 3.5, with default normally being 4. I wanted to slow it down because combat isn't extremely fast paced and I didn't want the player zipping by every enemy without fighting them. Also, the heart piece in the abandon house was originally dash boots, but the dash system built into the pixel-movement script is kinda wonky, so I decided to had to cut it out last minute and change the treasure. However, dash boots will be making an appearance in the final game, I'll try to make it a point to make sure the player gets them early on.

- The ABS is the closest I've seen to a Zelda clone (and a damned good at it). My only complaint is that damage is almost inevitable. Monsters aren't stunned or knocked back upon hit, and some of them (slimes) can do area attacks, so the only real aspect to battles is mashing the sword key until they're dead, and healing up later (which leads to my next point...)

The lack of a knock-back when hitting an enemy is a complaint I've hear once before, so it's definitely something I will have to consider going back and looking into implementing.

- I haven't found any consumable potions yet, but as far as healing go, it's pretty easy to get to full health. Methinks your bushes and pots are almost too common (though I suppose it's good to have more in a beginner area; as long as you lessen them in later dungeons). The fact that you can reenter a map as many times as you want to destroy bushes and reap the rewards makes getting hearts and gold too simple for those patient enough to try. I don't know if this is feasible, but you could try making the bush reappear after a set time limit, or only when you enter and leave a new larger area (e.g. mines -> forest).

The purpose of having so many bushes and pots was to make sure the player has an opportunity to get health whenever needed, without having to stop, fumble through a menu, and use an item. Anyone patient enough to go back and forth to farm gold is more than welcome. This is exactly how it works in the Zelda games as well, and a feature I'll be leaving alone. The game does get harder, the enemies in starting areas only do a quarter heart damage, while the forest and cave areas the enemies do half a heart worth of damage. As you progress through the game, the enemies will be more difficult, so health won't be quite as bountiful. But regardless, even if you die, you can continue from the map you just entered with full health. The challenge of the game doesn't come from combat so much as figuring out where to go and what to do.

- Be careful with map boundaries! Some areas (the abandoned house in the forest) have open boundaries that are dead ends. This is rather upsetting to an explorer, especially given the slow walking speed. If you're going to have map ends transfer a player, make sure ALL map ends transfer a player; block off the rest with trees or impassable cliffs so the player won't get confused.

Valid point. I believe there are only 3 or 4 maps where you can actually reach an edge without going to another map, but I will be sure to go back and fix this. The tree borders don't work as well when you have pixelmovent, because you can walk in between each tree. But I'll be sure to fix this in future versions.

Also, just so I can get a general idea, what was you rank and play time ŊŒRIJ∑? :grin:

Oh, and how is the game performing for you regi? As far as the engine speed, FPS, etc.

 

[Necrile]

Ah, shit..I can't remember. I'm pretty sure my rank was Wanderer, and my play time? Somewhere between 30 minutes and 1.5 hours.

 

[udivision]

As of now, there's only the sword slot, and two free hands to equip whichever items you want. However in the complete version of the game, there are going to be a couple hidden relics throughout the world that are completely optional and are going to take a little bit of searching for. Relics essentially give you passive abilities. For example, there's the Lucky Coin that increases the item drop rate from enemies and bushes. There's another relic called the Soul Stone, which will heal your health a bit as you kill enemies. The relics stack and can be all used at once, meaning if you find all the relics your character should be pretty buff by the end.

Alright, sounds good!

 

[regi]

Just finished the demo! Still have quite a bit of completion missing (only 55%) but here are some more crits.

One small bug I forgot to mention is that you don't pick up hearts/gold if they appear right under you. You have to walk off them first, then come back, which is slightly irritating.

I really love when the player holds up a new item. Did you have to create individual sprites for each, or just script something that displays the icon? There were a few typos I noticed ('ammounted' was one), and a few items were overexplained (but probably okay for beginners to RM).

The puzzles were nice, but I would've liked to see more! The boulder-pushing was ingenious (being able to move in 8d while holding onto it), but it barely happened twice. Torches and arrows are pretty elementary Zelda puzzles; I really loved shooting the arrow through the fireball, though, that was creative. I know it's the first dungeon, but I felt you could have utilized the tools more. Keep it up, though, so far it's excellent.

Finally, the boss fight was fun and challenging. I'm sad I never actually got to slash at it with a sword, though (after the spider laid its eggs seems like a good time), but of course that's up to you. It would have added some nuance and extra fluff to the battle IMO, but that's probably Zelda-esque nostalgia speaking.

Overall, this has to be the most fluid ABS I've seen around, especially for a partly-evented one. Kudos, and good luck with the rest of your project!
Hope mine own ABS project, when it's released, can stand up to this competitor of yours, good sir

 

[Ace of Spades]

More crits, thank you thank you.

One small bug I forgot to mention is that you don't pick up hearts/gold if they appear right under you. You have to walk off them first, then come back, which is slightly irritating.

Agreed that it's irritating, however, I'm not sure if there's a practical work around. It's the way RMXP works, it doesn't register you touching the event because it spawned on top of you. I love RMXP because it's so easy to work with, but some of the simplest things can really be difficult to alter.

I really love when the player holds up a new item. Did you have to create individual sprites for each, or just script something that displays the icon? There were a few typos I noticed ('ammounted' was one), and a few items were overexplained (but probably okay for beginners to RM).

They're individual sprites for each item. My spriting abilities are pretty limited, but I wanted to make the characters really come to life the best I could. It's the little touches that count. Fixed the typo, and will double check for others.

The puzzles were nice, but I would've liked to see more! The boulder-pushing was ingenious (being able to move in 8d while holding onto it), but it barely happened twice. Torches and arrows are pretty elementary Zelda puzzles; I really loved shooting the arrow through the fireball, though, that was creative. I know it's the first dungeon, but I felt you could have utilized the tools more. Keep it up, though, so far it's excellent.

The bolder pushing is actually quite glitchy, hence why it's only in two areas of the game. The problem is the bolder can be rolled over objects without any concern for passablity. Obviously it isn't too noticeable if no one has mentioned it yet, but I didn't want to add a bunch of bolder rolling sequences because they need work. The fireball puzzle was by far my favorite to come up with, glad you liked it. For my first dungeon, this was more of a learning experience. You can be certain that as the game has progressed, so have my skills as a developer. I think the things I have in store should be on a grander scale.

Finally, the boss fight was fun and challenging. I'm sad I never actually got to slash at it with a sword, though (after the spider laid its eggs seems like a good time), but of course that's up to you. It would have added some nuance and extra fluff to the battle IMO, but that's probably Zelda-esque nostalgia speaking.

Dearly noted, I enjoy extra fluff as well. Perhaps the spider will come to the player's platform and start attacking them directly.

Overall, this has to be the most fluid ABS I've seen around, especially for a partly-evented one. Kudos, and good luck with the rest of your project!

Thank you kindly, the feedback was extremely useful. You have well written critiques. Good luck on your project as well, if you have any development related questions along the way, I'd be happy to help. I'm always looking for good action games to play.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Alright, so having received feedback from a number of different individuals, I think it's time to release the demo to the public! I'm pleased with the impressions so far (aside from reported lag from Jbrist :down: ), and I'm glad to have gotten feedback so quickly, so thank you to those of you who assisted in testing. Check the main post for the download link. Also, placed a gameplay video of the first boss fight, but perhaps you should just try it for yourself. :wink:

Spoiler: Video of First Boss Fight...Actual Spoiler!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMSziosqyiI

 

[Necrile]

Haha well I didn't even waste my mana trying to kill it when he was on the other side. I just waited for him to poop eggs on the wall and I went ape shit with the flaming bolts.

 

[Ares]

I am currently downloading the game, and I'm really looking forward to playing it. I hope performance issues won't be much of a problem, but I'm not sure as I've got a fairly slow computer.

 

[gRaViJa]

i played it for a while. the battle system was fun and had some nice systems, the game flowed well. Story and characterwise the demo hasn't much content, but that probaply not the aim of this demo. The mapping was good but i didn' LOVE every map, it was just good :p It was bit weird when you got to Jed's weaponshop. I thought the island was desolate, and all of a sudden in the middle of nowhere: a weapon shop!

overall: fun demo for a while, for the full game i hope for more characters and story, but it's definitly promising.

 

[Ace of Spades]

I am currently downloading the game, and I'm really looking forward to playing it. I hope performance issues won't be much of a problem, but I'm not sure as I've got a fairly slow computer.

Hopefully it won't be a problem, but be sure to stop back in and let me know. If it's a widespread problem, my consideration was to look at game engines other than RMXP before continuing development.

i played it for a while. the battle system was fun and had some nice systems, the game flowed well. Story and characterwise the demo hasn't much content, but that probaply not the aim of this demo. The mapping was good but i didn' LOVE every map, it was just good :p It was bit weird when you got to Jed's weaponshop. I thought the island was desolate, and all of a sudden in the middle of nowhere: a weapon shop!

overall: fun demo for a while, for the full game i hope for more characters and story, but it's definitly promising.

Thanks for the comments. I should probably mention that if you're looking for a game with a deep storyline and well developed characters, this unfortunately won't be it. Odyssey's focus is on gameplay. Personally I'd rather play something that's fun than read lines upon lines of dialogue, so that's the style I'm going for. The same applies to the older games like Zelda though...nobody played them game for the storyline, it was about exploration, figuring out puzzles, and gaining cool new stuff to toy around with.

Haha, and yes, Jed is one of the very few inhabitants you'll encounter on the island. It's a shame he's narcoleptic, or else he might have more to say.