Pathways I

[l0rdph0enix]

Pathways I : The  path less traveled.

http://i38.tinypic.com/14b54xv.jpg[/img]

About:

Technically this is the very first game I've made with RPG Maker XP. It just doesn't look like it because in stead of making some little practice game or a remake of a game already out there, I stuck with it and applied what I learned over time to it. I've spent about a year on this on and off but with alot of burst of work in between the breaks. So far it's only 2/5 the way completed but since it's going to be a really big long game I think it's pretty go considering what all it has now.

Spoiler: Characters

The User
http://i37.tinypic.com/mvrgr7.png[/img]
Name: You Choose it
Age: Is not a factor but if one must be made, 32
Class: You Choose
Misc: The Graphic show here is the very first look at the player. You can choose the sex and class of you character and that will change the graphic to reflect it.

http://i38.tinypic.com/281bg1u.png[/img]
Name: Madame Kathi (NPC)
Age: 36
Class: Mage Level 1
Misc: Owns and runs the local brothel in Pleasent Shores.

http://i36.tinypic.com/2zish89.png[/img]
Name: Wynter (NPC)
Age: 28
Class: Huntress Level 1
Misc: Has a pet bunny named Snowball that often gets lost.

http://i36.tinypic.com/30227tg.png[/img]
Name: Rogue
Age: 35
Class: Rogue Level 2
Misc: Not much is know about Rogue other then she is a rogue with mage tendencies.

http://i34.tinypic.com/nnpo4z.png[/img]
Name: McNifty
Age: 43
Class: Paladin Level 2
Misc: A hard headed dwarf with a strong will to fight and even stronger will to drink.

Spoiler: Screenies

Title Screen (it's animated)
http://i35.tinypic.com/sngozb.png[/img]

File Loading Screen
http://i37.tinypic.com/106gi8h.png[/img]

Game Play
http://i35.tinypic.com/66wvmp.png[/img]

More to come.

Spoiler: Features

Custom Character creation Create your own character via Name, Sex, and Class.
Custom User Interface that changes depending on which window skill is chosen.
Hunger System. Gotta eat to live.
Sober System. You can get drunk in the game and if you drink to much you'll see a green fairy.
Mining System. As your experience goes up in mining so does your ability to mine better ores.
Herbalism System. You can actually use a trowel to dig up the herbs root to gain the herb and xp.
Cooking System. Cook food to eat or sell. The higher your cooking level the better foods you can make.
First-Aid System. Collect cloth and venom to make 3 different levels of Bandages and Anti-Venom
Class Level-Up System. As your characters level increases it gets to a point where your class level increase so you can learn even more stronger skills.
Quest System. Not many quest install yet but there are a few (some still bugged).

Spoiler: Storyline

You're already dead living in the after life for a few centuries. Growing bored of it you decide to 'live' again. So you spend a few more years watching the many other worlds and dimensions that you can choose from and decide to live on the entity Time's world. Descending out of the sky's you land (rather hard) on Times tower where she asked you for your name, sex, and what class you would like to be in her world. Afterward she directs you to her apprentice Minute whom gives you a choice to continue on to the world or to go with him to the training grounds for a crash course on how to play. Either way you go he tells you before sending you off that there is a book case in your home his sending you to that has all of your memories, life goals, ambitions, and desires in it. Basically your life purpose. Upon entering Time's world you see this creature run from a bookcase and out the door, going to the bookcase yourself you see that your book was just stolen. Running outside the thief is nowhere to be found so you must now spend your time finding your book completing small and big quest along the way meeting new people and helping towns out.

Spoiler: Demo

Here's the latest Demo

Edit: I forgot to note something :P.

Spoiler: Easter Eggs

I personally like to find easter eggs in games and movies so I put a few in mine too.

1. The squirrels in  Squirrel Woods are minions of Foamy, with Foamy there too that give you potions and gold and if you activate the Easter Egg  they verbally (talking about with audio) insult you too.

2. A hidden Class. If you name your character a special name when you make it  then somewhere in the game you can chose to unlock the hidden class of Pirate. Your character turns into a pirate male or female, and if you have the Ye Olde Go-Kart it turns into a modified rowboat for land. When you're using the Teleportation maps instead of a cursor your character is a boat on the water parts of the make and an air-ship on the land parts. You also gain pirate armor and skills. Along with access to a pirate tavern where you get really high wielding quest.  As a pirate you can fight guards or put them to sleep to get some really treasures.

Spoiler: Mini Games

Fishing. GO fishing and cook what you catch.
Mining Cart Riding. Ride around in a mining cart to find fun items. Only four trips a game day.
Toy Tank. Pay a clown to drive around a toy tank and blow up rocks and logs to find stuff.

I'm also working on the sequal to Pathways I. Pathways II : The beaten path. (made in VX with XP graphics)

And I'd like to make Pathways III : The forgotten path in a 3-D program but I haven't found one I like yet to do this.

Edit: Fixed the Demo. Now works properly.

 

[Spoo]

This is a blast from the past to me.  My first project was named Pathways too.  And it had an almost identical premise.

Good luck!  I want to see what my old ambitions would have produced.

 

[l0rdph0enix]

Well if you like I am looking for help on developing this so if you're interested PM me with your skills and examples.

 

[moog]

Wow this looks interesting :O

I like the screens, good luck!

 

[006]

You shouldn't save images as .jpegs, and also don't mix XP RTP with VX RTP! Some of the features you got in there are just scripts that have been publicly released, and therefore really don't count as features. If the option is custom and stuff like that, that it would count as features, you can stick stuff like:
[*]Hunger System
[*]Mining System
[*]Herbalism System
[*]Cooking System
[*]Class Level-Up System
[*]Quest System
[*]Etc.
Stick them under something on the lines of game mechanics or something. The characters are very short and dull, and don't give you any information about the character. The story makes absolutely no sense, I could barely read it. Who's "she"? How do you suddenly come back to life?
Just some things to think about.

 

[SorcerGamble2]

actually, i thot it was kinda cute that ur using vx characters in a xp game, using the vx characters as dwarves.  they do kinda make good dwarves as compared to the xp charas.  now we need someone to make a human vs. dwarves epic war game !!!  (but i'll pass on fishing, i don't even like do that in real life.)

 

[l0rdph0enix]

You shouldn't save images as .jpegs, and also don't mix XP RTP with VX RTP! Some of the features you got in there are just scripts that have been publicly released, and therefore really don't count as features. If the option is custom and stuff like that, that it would count as features, you can stick stuff like:
[*]Hunger System
[*]Mining System
[*]Herbalism System
[*]Cooking System
[*]Class Level-Up System
[*]Quest System
[*]Etc.
Stick them under something on the lines of game mechanics or something. The characters are very short and dull, and don't give you any information about the character. The story makes absolutely no sense, I could barely read it. Who's "she"? How do you suddenly come back to life?
Just some things to think about.

Sorry to burst your bubble but the "Custom Character creation" IS custom, it's entirely event based. And the "Custom User Interface" IS custom scripted and event based, the only parts of it I didn't make are the Mini Map and the Facts section in the lower Right corner but I did modify that so it's not it's original. AND all of the Screen shots are *.PNG files not JPEG. The screen shots are only at a 75% reduction of the original 640x480 screenshot. That way the pictures aren't too big and you still get a pretty good idea of what things look like. Clearly English isn't your first language as "she" clearly refers to Time. An actually being in the game. And by asking "How do you suddenly come back to life?" Implies you don't believe or even understand the idea of reincarnation. And the simple fact of the matter is the player doesn't gain control over the character until they are taken to Minute's training ground, or taken to their home. Every thing up to these two events is controlled by the game. It's like when you watch a story in a commercial game that gives the background on the main character. The player simply sits there and watches until they are asked for their desired name, sex, and class. Once those three factors are satisfied the game reclaims control of the character until it's ready to turn it over to the player. Saying the story doesn't make sense is silly. I even spelled it out to the reader in one simple sentence.

Basically your life purpose

and 'your' refers to the players character. The player is searching for their book that tells them what their life purpose is. As stated this is the very early stages of a demo release on a very big long game. The characters listed are all the ones that you can have in your party. More will be added as production on the game continues. These are not the only people that the player will come in contact with in the game much less the demo. I don't believe there is anywhere stating that you can't use VX graphics in XP or visa verse and if there is please quote it to correct me and I'll make the correction to the game.

As for SorcerGamble2, thank you for the complement, I thought it was a good idea myself. If you have any problems with your games let me know and I see what I can do to help.

 

[Desecration]

Hey,

The characters at the moment seem very basic and as its a single-player RPG, they'd be expected to have a tad more depth to them. The story seems to have a good base idea, a entity getting to live a new life. Though it may be a idea to give the player a  purpose to live again (War, Demon, other cliché reasons here). Rather than just having it relive for the sake of going back to help a few old men find there watches, fishing and eating.

Another thing you may want to look at is your current HUD, its bulky, intrusive and ugly. You may want to give it another look, make it sleeker, smaller and more eye friendly.

My last point is your demo size, is rather big. What does it include? What doesn't it include?

If you worked at it I'm sure you'd improve it, good luck.

 

[l0rdph0enix]

Yeah I agree with you on the characters info description. As it is at the moment I'm the only working on this game so I have a lot of other stuff for it on the mind other the character descriptions, as I get more help I'll be able to put more detail into the characters. I'm not completely sold on the the User Interface myself. I'd like and option in the menu where the player could go to see their experience levels for mining, herbalism, ect. But I haven't found one yet. When I do, then the UI will be sleeked down to just the minimap, the states hud, and the facts hud.

I a sure you there are more quest to come I just haven't put them in yet. Fishing is just something the player can do to "relax" or sell the fish to make extra money if they don't want to fight. The hunger system is something I put in as something else the player needs to keep and eye on other then health and mana, the foods they can eat also give them other state bonus as their cooking skill increases. One of the smaller/larger quest is getting rid of a gang of bandits that have taken over one of the towns and that even has a few quest linked to it.

As to the games files size it's ALOT smaller then the first two unofficial demos were, they were over 200mb in size. Thank for the helpful feed back.

-L0rdPh0enix

 

[006]

Sorry to burst your bubble but the "Custom Character creation" IS custom, it's entirely event based. And the "Custom User Interface" IS custom scripted and event based, the only parts of it I didn't make are the Mini Map and the Facts section in the lower Right corner but I did modify that so it's not it's original.

Who said anything about the "Custom Character Creator", and the "Custom User Interface"? I chose the ones that were not features.

AND all of the Screen shots are *.PNG files not JPEG. The screen shots are only at a 75% reduction of the original 640x480 screenshot. That way the pictures aren't too big and you still get a pretty good idea of what things look like.

Ah.. no, check your logo/Jpeg image.  :thumb:

Clearly English isn't your first language as "she" clearly refers to Time. An actually being in the game.

English is my first language, and you never stated that Time was a person, your not supposed to make the player work to find things out!

And by asking "How do you suddenly come back to life?" Implies you don't believe or even understand the idea of reincarnation.

No, I believe that whats dead is dead, and should stay dead. Besides reincarnation usually needs to be performed by a ritual of some sort, by another human being.

The player simply sits there and watches until they are asked for their desired name, sex, and class.

That seems quite boring sitting there.

Once those three factors are satisfied the game reclaims control of the character until it's ready to turn it over to the player. Saying the story doesn't make sense is silly. I even spelled it out to the reader in one simple sentence.

It was the way you worded it-it was all over the place.

Anyways I was just trying to help improve your game, but it seems that I'm apparently not needed so I'll leave. Good luck with your game, I hope you can improve on some of the flaws!

 

[l0rdph0enix]

Ah.. no, check your logo/Jpeg image.

You never stated which images you were talking about.

You shouldn't save images as .jpegs,

The logo image is just that a logo image, it doesn't depict any game play only what some of the characters look like depending on what class you chose.

...your not supposed to make the player work to find things out!

Sorry to disagree with you and most of the free and commercial game creators out there will disagree too. That's the point of a game, make it challenge for the player where everything isn't spoon fed to them.

the entity Time's world. Descending out of the sky's you land (rather hard) on Times tower where she asked you for your name, sex, and what class you would like to be in her world.

Besides reincarnation usually needs to be performed by a ritual of some sort, by another human being.

Learn something Reincarnation

That seems quite boring sitting there.

So your saying Cut Scenes and pre-gameplay movies are boring too. You know the things that give background info on the player or different events unfolding in the game?

Good luck with your game.

Thank you :D.

 

[006]

The logo image is just that a logo image, it doesn't depict any game play only what some of the characters look like depending on what class you chose.

Logo image, or screenshot never save images as .jpeg

Sorry to disagree with you and most of the free and commercial game creators out there will disagree too. That's the point of a game, make it challenge for the player where everything isn't spoon fed to them.

I wasn't talking about in-game!

the entity Time's world. Descending out of the sky's you land (rather hard) on Times tower where she asked you for your name, sex, and what class you would like to be in her world.

It just doesn't seem to connect, maybe you should be a bit more clear and say, "where Time(Or whatever her name is) asked you..." not "she"!

So your saying Cut Scenes and pre-gameplay movies are boring too. You know the things that give background info on the player or different events unfolding in the game?

Yep pretty much, gameplay is way better then some cheesy cut-scene.

Thank you :D.

No problem!

 

[The Map Helper]

Sorry to burst your bubble but the "Custom Character creation" IS custom, it's entirely event based. And the "Custom User Interface" IS custom scripted and event based, the only parts of it I didn't make are the Mini Map and the Facts section in the lower Right corner but I did modify that so it's not it's original.

Who said anything about the "Custom Character Creator", and the "Custom User Interface"? I chose the ones that were not features.

AND all of the Screen shots are *.PNG files not JPEG. The screen shots are only at a 75% reduction of the original 640x480 screenshot. That way the pictures aren't too big and you still get a pretty good idea of what things look like.

Ah.. no, check your logo/Jpeg image.  :thumb:

Clearly English isn't your first language as "she" clearly refers to Time. An actually being in the game.

English is my first language, and you never stated that Time was a person, your not supposed to make the player work to find things out!

And by asking "How do you suddenly come back to life?" Implies you don't believe or even understand the idea of reincarnation.

No, I believe that whats dead is dead, and should stay dead. Besides reincarnation usually needs to be performed by a ritual of some sort, by another human being.

The player simply sits there and watches until they are asked for their desired name, sex, and class.

That seems quite boring sitting there.

Once those three factors are satisfied the game reclaims control of the character until it's ready to turn it over to the player. Saying the story doesn't make sense is silly. I even spelled it out to the reader in one simple sentence.

It was the way you worded it-it was all over the place.

Anyways I was just trying to help improve your game, but it seems that I'm apparently not needed so I'll leave. Good luck with your game, I hope you can improve on some of the flaws!

No backseat modding. Reported to Moderator.

Next time, just use the report function and leave it at that. There's no need to broadcast that fact and,as a result, wind up backseat moderating yourself!

Also I don't really see what he's doing that a member wouldn't normally do -- it's just criticism, he's not trying to play cop or anything.

This looks interesting, but the HUD is so large I don't know how you can see past it.

 

[l0rdph0enix]

This looks interesting, but the HUD is so large I don't know how you can see past it.

Yeah I'm not sold on it myself. Would like to have an option in the menu that the player could goto to see their current xp levels for the different jobs but I haven't come across something like that yet and haven't sat down to try and event script it.

I'll be releasing demo update soon here with a new time system installed with added features.

 

[aram]

dude this game is messed up i keep getting errors because some picture that you forgot to upload to the game.

 

[friend]

No wonder why the pictures aren't showing is because you necroposted...

 

[aram]

what has necroposting whit the game to do? wtf....

 

[Kiriashi]

Dude, don't be silly. Justin Lee is right. You NECROPOSTED! So the demo is.. "NECRO"!!!! If it is really old it won't work probably. It is dead, and I'm guessing this game is too, thought l0rdph0enix might still be working on it.

 

[regi]

Guys, give it a rest. I'm locking this topic.

aram, the creator of this game hasn't been around since January. Also, when a topic hasn't been posted in for at least a month, please don't bump it up again.

Justin and Kiriashi: next time, simply report the post and don't comment. We can deal with it.

l0rdph0enix: If you return and would like this reopened, PM me and I'll gladly unlock it.