RMXP - First game project

[Rezca]

The working title I had when first designing this around two years ago was Blue Horizon. I never thought of a better title and so it stuck. After a month or three I left the Rpg Maker community and focused my attention on other things. Recently I dug this up on my hard drive while cleaning and started to work on it daily. This is the effort of another month of work. I was originally making up the story as I went along, but then I started including elements from my fictional world I had been doodling. Since then I came up with a vague idea of what I want the story to be. Any similarities to other storylines, commercial or otherwise, is purely coincidental. The ONE reference to any other game is the Spell naming system of Final Fantasy (Cure, Cura, Curaga, Curaja, etc) and that is all.

In effect:

-The game starts up with a scene of a mine and a strange crystal that had been dug up.
-The main character(s) learn of this and head to a town to talk with a miner that worked there.
-The main character(s) and the miner decide to head to a town far to the southwest with the crystal.

Planned:

-While traveling to Archwind (The forementioned town) the heroes are separated.
-Each of the three party members have a separate playthrough for a while.
-While playing on one member's mini-story he/she comes across a passive dragon who joins the party
-Upon reaching Archwind the magicsmith mentioned earlier had been abducted
-... ... ...More to be thought of ... ... ...


Current Features:

-ParaDog's Sideview ATB
-mattfriend's Questlog
-Blizzard's Status Effects, Skills, Map Names
-Save Point system
-Momomo's Bestiary
-ParaDog's Kill Counter
-Face pictures for each of the main characters during dialogue
-Ability to skip various quest cinematics

Planned:

-Using the dragon member to fast travel to various towns
-mini-quest and non-quest dungeons (one in effect currently)
-New Game++ Mode (Yeah right. But I can hope can't I?)
-"Oversoul" Monsters

Right now the opening cinematic and the cinematic of the party discussing what to do with the stone can be skipped. I have ironed out many of the bugs I had found during the three cinematics currently in-game that I know of.

Currently fixed:

-Skipping the opening cinematic would not work
-Skipping the opening cin would cause the player to be stuck after the cinematic
-Attempting to leave the first area after completing the opening quest would bring up the dialogue "We have to turn back"
-Sophia no longer remains in game after the second cinematic is finished
-After Nicolas joins the party the player would be stuck in forced Set Move Route
-The Mimic in the Abandoned Home in Alathka would get stuck in the stairs, blocking the player from entering.
-In the simple box puzzle in the Abandoned Home's basement, it is possible to block the only exit with the boulders preventing the player from ever leaving
-Soldiers stationed on the walls of Alathka would be hidden from sight when not moving.
-Many many MANY pathing issues
-Some typos
-Balancing issues
-After Nicolas joins the party, it would start an infinite loop showing the "-has joined the party" message forever.
-Opening the Questlog would display the Save Menu instead.
-Using an Herb would damage the player instead of healing (Don't ask.)
-Four doors in Alathka would link to a house in the town of Ley
-Skills lacking an animation have been remedied
-Giant Lizards and Snakes should no longer evade every attack
-Giant Lizards should no longer one-shot Sophia
-Resistances have been adjusted properly
-The cinematic specific maps would display the map name upon entering (bad.)
-Mason's face graphic common event would behave erratically during the cinematic in Redbrick Cave
-The fog image in Redbrick would persist when taking certain exits when it was supposed to be removed
-After the cinematic in Redbrick, the battle encounter would never start, causing the player to be permanently stuck in place.
-Other stuff as well

Yet to fix:

-I broke the opening cinematic AGAIN. It is possible to open the menu during the cinematic
-Skipping the opening cinematic will display the next map for a brief second then fade to black before resuming gameplay. Annoying, but nothing game-breaking
-The link events at the Alathka east gate don't activate on Player Touch. You have to use the Action Button

To skip the two cinematics, press 'A' on the keyboard.

Main Characters:

Mason
-Human
-Male
-Age (Haven't thought of it)

Sophia
-Elf
-Female
-Same as above

Nicolas
-Asyrian (Different type of Human)
-Male
-Around 20 - 32

Rezca(?)
-Aukuri Dragon
-Male
-Between 40 - 90

Only 38 maps are visitable currently. Several are cinematic specific, and a few others haven't been linked yet.


This is my first game ever in any of the RPG Makers and I hope I am doing a decent job at this. I especially want some feedback on the design of the maps and any balancing issues with enemies and actors. The current windowskin is the VX style, but I am planning on changing it soon.

I'll upload the screenshots in a moment.

Edit:

Screenshots

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/file/olsswm66uc2owke/Blue Horizon.exe

 

[SPN]

Even the mere mentioning of some kind of powerful, strange crystal or artifact will come across as very cliché to quite a few people, but I wouldn't listen to 'em. There have been plenty of games based off of frequently used elements that have turned out to be amazing adventures and overall fantastic (Golden Sun series comes to mind). I noticed that you haven't received any replies as of yet, which is unfortunate, especially for the aspiring game makers. I'll give it a download and see what it's all about

Keep at it!

 

[SPN]

All right, got through the first little bit there (and by first, I mean about five minutes, haha). The intro was pretty nice, I liked your use of the emotion bubbles. The text was kind of hard to follow sometimes, as it didn't always show who was talking. I mean, it was pretty obvious at times, but it was easy to get lost at times too.

For the most part, the dialog was quite believable. Nothing really stood out as being "forced" in the few conversations I witnessed. When I got to the forest area though...oh man. I had four random encounters just getting to that chest on the left. The battles take a decent amount of time as well, so I spent about 3 minutes on that map. About 10 seconds of that was outside of battles. Random encounters are quite annoying in general (it adds a feeling of being rushed, and I just can't enjoy much of anything knowing I could be interrupted at any second). Your fights in particular are a bit too long, and way too frequent. I didn't make it ten steps before hitting a battle.

Tone down the HP of the monsters in general (a Bee probably shouldn't take four hits to bring it down, especially when they're in groups like that) and for the love of God, please decrease the encounter rate drastically.

Overall, so far, it needs a bit of tweaking and polish overall, but I do see potential in it. If you can adjust the encounter rate at least, it'll give me the strength to play farther, haha.