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Sia Selvane: The Beginning

Fen

Member

Downloading as I type this!
It honestly looks really good. I've been going "I need to work on my game... But I want to play this! O:" all week ;D

I'd offer to help you map but I'm leaving for three weeks on July 23rd, so I wouldn't be much help.
More thoughts after I play through the demo.

EDIT.

Just played, here are all my thoughts:
Ah, my handwriting is messy! >< I can hardly read what I wrote down. Okay... this first thing looks like 'athacf mein' but I'm pretty sure it's attack rate.

I found the random encounter rate just to be slightly too high. I was using up potions like crazy.

I wasn't too impressed with the beginning of the game, *especially* the mapping. It got better underground, though.
A lot of your signs/doors are messed up because of the UMS. When I read one of the signs in front of Kalea, it told me a civilian was talking, and in Kalea, voices were telling me that their doors were locked. So check your event and make sure that the name thing is off on those events.

You named your civilians... civilian. D: Valan should probably know a few of the citizens in Kalea, so they should have have names.

The person sleeping in the inn has their direction fix off.

The menu cuts off depending if you're by the edge of the map.

OMIGOSH A KOBOLD CITY OMIGOSH 8D
This is the point where I became into on the game.

I visited the physician's before the council, and I was like WTH GA'ACK? I'm going there? x: and then went to see the council meeting.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE how they all jumped and were like 'Humans!' at the same time. Adorable!

The knight vow seems a little simple. "Protect those in need of protection." You should think of something that means the same but sounds a little more knightly and less redundant. Though the phrase is kinda growing on me, it's simple and honest.

I adore Oanu.

Oh, and how come neither Eamon or Valan go WTF KOBOLDS? when they enter the cavern. It's like... they're all like oh whatever.

This next thing loks like bloue. OH. blocked. When you find the door to the Cavern of Fire blocked, there's no switch to tell the row events to not do it anymore. I stepped up to the door, and everytime I stepped in that row, I got Oanu telling me it was blocked.

Err, no one remarked on entering the Cavern of Fire... XD

The stone golem's crit was 45... o.o knocked out Valan.
Instead of having infrequent strong attacks, he should have more frequent weak ones.
It was a tiny bit on the long side for a first boss battle, but it was good.

If the golem was enslaved, why was he fighting? Did the orb compell him? O:

AND NOOO. THE DEMO IS OVER ALREADY. AHH.
I HAVE TO BEAT THE GOLEM ALL OVER AGAIN NEXT TIME! XD

Valan's sprite could use a little shading =/

I would certaintly be willing to help you with some maps (ask me if you want an example, i'm seriously to tired to open a tab to photobucket atm) if you sent me the ulimate tilesets with their passabilities set when you're done with them XD /mooch

Good game, though. The quality of the beginning is a little lacking, but it can easily be fixed.
The kobold town = <3

Keep working on it!
I'm excited for another update.
 
I just finished your demo.

I played your demo, and while it's nothing special, I can see your story is very well thought out from your post. The mapping is okay (lots of room for improvement), but there is really no time to look at the maps with the very high encounter rate. On that note, I don't think anyone ever attacked before the enemies until I got to the boss. I'm not fond of your experience curve, either. Kalan levels up waaay too much faster than everyone else. Oanu never once leveled up until I beat the boss.

I also agree that your cutscenes could use more action. When they fall during the earthquake thingy (which may or may not have been the golem, it's not clear enough), you could have Eamon represented on the map, moving towards the source of the water.

Also, in the Kobold village, the first house has a misplaced transfer event back outside. I thought I was trapped! Another suggestion is to have all of the Kobold act all surprised before Oanu comes along (it would make sense that an isolated community would be more Xenophobic then they were), and once he joins, have them all talk how they're going into Ga'ack to stop the [little feral things with forgettable names]. That's when the shop should open. The council meeting place was the very last place I went in the Kobold Village. Also, like Fen, the Kobold village was the first place that actually made me want to play more!

The golem used mass earth for the first three turns (it probably ran out of MP), then it used a physical attack and NEVER did anything else. Give it a requirement for Mass Earth that its MP must be above 0. Otherwise, it just tries to use it over again with no avail (now I feel sorry for the poor, helpless golem).

Also, in the dialogue, I noticed you missed a few commas for direct adresses ("let's go Eamon" instead of "let's go, Eamon"). Also, in the town, you need to put \nm[] in all of the text boxes that have no name associated with them. Otherwise, I get that the child that was chasing the other is saying that the door is locked. That's one thing you have to look out for with ccoa's UMS. On that note, try to make use of the ignore and include functions coded into the UMS. They're really helpful when you have long names.

e.g.
:\ignr\nm[RANDOMGIBBERISHPERSON]
:"Blah blah Blah lala O freude cheese lalala
:my uncle mary likes tacos lalalalalalalalala

:\inc hahahahahhahaha jabberwocky ice
:cream potatoes and chocholate syrup!"

^That would all appear in one textbox with a name box saying "RANDOMGIBBERISHPERSON".
 

Ares

Member

I just played your demo, and i think the storyline is awesome.

As already said, your maps could use some work, but if you follow one or two tutorials on youtube (EG:willowsidhe[\b]), it will be just fine. (Some maps are pretty good, like the first city, but other maps look like they are a bit rushed)

About the encounter rate:
NNolund":1pm8a4x5 said:
Myself and the two friends I had test for bugs didn't have a very high encounter rate (I think I averaged 5 battles in the first two maps
I personally think 3-5 battles on a map is pretty much, especially since there are a lot of maps between A and B (which isn't a bad thing). Maybe you could switch to visual encounters. That way there can be 3-5 battles on one map, but there will be an option to sneak past them, and you could actually look at the map once all enemies have been slayed.

And one other thing is that i was quite disappointed when there was no epic boss-music during the Golem-fight ;)

This game has lots of potential and I will play next versions in the future =D
 

Nolund

Sponsor

Ares":1qp9aswc said:
I personally think 3-5 battles on a map is pretty much, especially since there are a lot of maps between A and B (which isn't a bad thing).

Sorry, should've been a little clearer when I said that. What I meant was, in the dozen or so times I've been forced to playtest it (wanted to make sure I got ALL the bugs possible, and since this demo has been released I've found and changed a bunch of them, many which have already been mentioned) I average 5 battles in total on the first two maps (2 on one, 3 on the other). However, I've increased the step averages on battle encounters, so that should be fixed on the next release.

@Fen and Metatron:

Thanks a LOT for the feedback guys. It is exceptionally helpful to know exact problems people have (and how to fix them, so kudos for that too).

I know a lot of people have been giving feedback on my mapping, and all I can say is, I warned you it was bad :p

Anyway, some little updates:

- I have completely redone the opening sequence. It is longer, and introduces a few things a little better. It also involves some better cutscenes, as there is more action, and less standing around just reading text. I have also included a little tutorial section (which can be skipped) for battles.

- I have gone through all of my text windows to fix alignment issues (in some areas, text gets cut off) and grammar mistakes. I have also done the proper \nm coding on the UMS for signs, people, etc. There are new names in Kalea as well (because as, Fen pointed out, Valan knows a few people in the city).

- I've upgraded a couple maps (going to fix up some more of them as much as I can too) so they aren't AS bad. I'm still not mark1707 of course, but hey, I told you guys my mapping isn't great :p

However, in addition to good news, must come the bad.

I have left where I was staying in Nebraska, as I will be leaving for college next month. Now, that isn't all that bad, but I don't have a computer right now (I'm staying with a friend for a week) so, unfortunately, this project is forced to be put on hold until I can get one. The good news from this though, is that I have time to work out some more plot stuff.

So, as much as I hate to do it, I have to put SS:TB on hold.
 
Well, I look forward to seeing how you've fixed it up as well as a finished project sometime in the future!

Still, once you can work on this again, make sure you fix the balance issues with the boss.

I know a lot of people have been giving feedback on my mapping, and all I can say is, I warned you it was bad :p
It's not that bad. It's so-so.
 

Nolund

Sponsor

Well everyone, I am very happy to say that I hope to start working on this project once again. I likely won't be releasing a new demo in the near future, but I hope to at least get some time set aside to work on this at night.
 

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