The Lore of Lorewyn

[bastian]

id-vQ8oNKY8

This game features 100% original music (including Victory, Battle, Item, and Inn themes) written by me and my band done in an Indie Rock style.
And an extremely unique and unconventional story (once you get into it).

PLOT

Spoiler

With several major plot twists occurring throughout the progression of the 25+ hour story, what at first seems like a cliche good vs. evil quest unfolds into something much more unique. You will have to play the game to discover its surprising ending.

You are your ordinary self from our ordinary world, but one morning you awaken in a tower in a magical pre-Renaissance island kingdom. You discover you are part of an ancient prophecy and must help the recently returned prince conquer the source of evil that has overrun the land.

But all is not as it seems...

On your journey you will discover bit by bit that the quest you were sent on is more complicated and more full of intrigue than you could have imagined.

CHARACTERS

Spoiler

Tyrin: You. Not some pre-existing character, but actually you, the person reading this now. Tyrin is not your real name of course, but that's what people call you in this new Land of Lorewyn. Of course, you had little if any experience in swordplay in our world, but on waking in Lorewyn you find yourself exceedingly skilled. Mia says that this is because you've been magically blessed with a magical Ability called Swordplay within Lorewyn. As you level up, you will learn "skills" related to Swordplay.

Mia: an Elemantal Mage who was assigned to Tyrin Tower. She's bubbly and nice and fresh from training, so is eager to prove herself and her magic.

Baeon: the prince of Lorewyn. There are several strange facts about him. Firstly, no one knew Lorewyn had a prince. But the king reveals that Baeon's mother had concealed her pregnancy and ran away to birth him in secrecy. Unfortunately, Baeon was found unconscious today, remembering nothing of his past. His Ability is vast Strength. But this is useless to him as he is completely unskilled in weaponry. He's much more interested in spell casting, but lacks proficiency in anything but curative magic.

Sylar: a young man from a noble family. His sister Sylea is thought to have been abducted by Radasol. Sylar was too lazy and disinterested in training in weaponry or magic, so his quest in finding and freeing his sister is proving difficult.

Yasian: an old, forgetful mage who might turn out to be none of those things.

Sylea: a very skilled archer from a noble family with super eyesight as her Ability. She and her brother have more in common than either knew and will enjoy.

SCREENSHOTS

Spoiler

DOWNLOAD
http://trianglehard.webs.com/theloreoflorewyn.htm

 

[glorious caesar]

first off congratulations for making a full game. that's badass, very few people actually get that far.

This game features 100% original music (including Victory, Battle, Item, and Inn themes) written by me and my band done in an Indie Rock style.

this is really cool. congrats dude. if that's one of your big features then you should show off some select tracks.

now with that out of the way, i have to give you some actual feedback and you're not gonna like it :box:

And an extremely unique and unconventional story (once you get into it).

With several major plot twists occurring throughout the progression of the 25+ hour story, what at first seems like a cliche good vs. evil quest unfolds into something much more unique. You will have to play the game to discover its surprising ending.

frankly i don't want to sit through 25+ hours of a subpar, cliche RTP game to get to a twist ending. tell us more about the plot other than some vague "you wake up and you're the chosen one" bullshit. what makes this story special? why do i want to play it? what is the story that you are going to tell?

your characters are generic fantasy tropes and your mapping is disgustingly bland (although admittedly it's mostly not your fault because RMVX's RTP maps are always garbage).

also the name of the world is too similar to a commercial property's world "Lorwyn" (this isn't really too big of an issue but when your world is a generic fantasy world without anything really unique about it, it sort of kills your whole thing).

honestly you're going to need to present this with a LOT more enthusiasm and a LOT more INFORMATION if you want people to download it at all. it looks like the kind of first-project mediocrity that anybody can slap together (and that's great, dude! Congrats on making a game), but it isn't anything that other people are going to want to play.

good luck, and use this as a learning experience to make something really cool for your next project :toot:

 

[bastian]

First of all, thanks for your feedback. I know that you're simply attempting to help me better present the game so that more people will be interested in playing it, and I appreciate that sentiment.

frankly i don't want to sit through 25+ hours of a subpar, cliche RTP game to get to a twist ending

Ah, you're misunderstanding me. First of all, I said nothing about the story being subpar; I think you'd find it pretty entertaining. As far as the plot twists go, there are several which occur throughout the course of the game. The first one is pretty obvious and takes place about a third through the game. The other two happen well before the ending. I can understand your concern, though, if the entirety of the game was cliche and then BAM sudden twist ending and then THE END. That would be lame. And thankfully that's now what this game is like at all. :D

I really want to clarify something about the word "Lorewyn." I created the word "Lorewyn" a long, long time before MTG introduced "Lorwyn." This game is actually based on a novel-length manuscript my friend and I wrote when we were kids. The book was pretty terrible and promptly rejected by TOR in 1999. But I've had more than a decade to think about the story and realize what I really wanted to do was make a videogame, and that book read like a videogame novelization rather than an actual novel.

As far as the plot twists go... no, I don't think I'll take your advice and ruin the story for people; they'll have to play the game to discover them. If they are not compelled by the intentionally generic veil-plot, then so be it, but 3500+ downloads later shows people have been willing to give it a shot. And liked it.

I've had some terrible reviews and I've had some glowing reviews. I've read comments on non-related message boards where people say that it was the best RMVX game they've ever played. I've read comments that say that the game is better than many commercial games they've played. But I've also seen comments that say that they didn't find the plot compelling. To each their own. However all of the comments I've seen from people who've actually finished the game are extremely positive.

Again, I know you're just trying to help, and I really do appreciate it... but I'm good, thanks. :D

 

[glorious caesar]

I said nothing about the story being subpar

but you didn't say ANYTHING about the story at all. you need to give us something; what's the hook? give us a reason to download the game. if your entire basis is "download to find out why you should download" then people aren't going to bother.

why did you post this here then if you don't want feedback?

 

[gRaViJa]

I'd like to add that i do like the music you made for this game. Your band has potential.

 

[Sailerius]

I really want to clarify something about the word "Lorewyn." I created the word "Lorewyn" a long, long time before MTG introduced "Lorwyn." This game is actually based on a novel-length manuscript my friend and I wrote when we were kids. The book was pretty terrible and promptly rejected by TOR in 1999. But I've had more than a decade to think about the story and realize what I really wanted to do was make a videogame, and that book read like a videogame novelization rather than an actual novel.

So what? Regardless of the story behind it, it's still very similar to Lorwyn and that's going to be the first association in anyone's mind. It's like that thread with the person insisting that there's no problem with naming their characters Von Sephiroth and McKefka. Change it, change it, change it.

Again, I know you're just trying to help, and I really do appreciate it... but I'm good, thanks. :D

I was considering checking your game out until I read this post. There's nothing that kills interest in a project more than a creator who ignores feedback.

 

[bastian]

Regardless of the story behind it, it's still very similar to Lorwyn and that's going to be the first association in anyone's mind.

Anyone? I doubt that. None of my immediate friends had ever heard of "Lorwyn" from MTG when I first discovered to my shock and horror that it existed (then again, almost none of them had heard of MTG). Of course, the world is much bigger than just my immediate friends. But eleven year old me won't allow me to change it. :P

I was considering checking your game out until I read this post. There's nothing that kills interest in a project more than a creator who ignores feedback.

Trust me, I do NOT ignore feedback. There's a 30+ page thread over at another RM forum of me doing nothing but listening to feedback and implementing it. But that doesn't mean I have to agree with every piece of feedback someone gives. There are, very specific things I won't change no matter what, one of them being the name of the game.

I do welcome any and all feedback. Even though this game has been officially completed, if you find something that I agree must be changed, I will do it. Otherwise, I'll at least think about what you have to say for the game I'm currently working on. So please do give feedback. I just reserve the right to refuse to implement any piece of it naturally.

 

[So fist]

Okay some brass bits.

The theme:

One the intro theme is in desperate need of levels remixing. All the beginning of the intro has the digerydoo way too loud and the delay and reverb is too much on that and the piano and it's making it sound way too muddy. The mix for the whole band is way too even. All the instruments are shouting over eachother creating cacophonic messiness at times. I would turn down the vocals and the bass instruments and choose one lead instrument to have the dominant harmony. Turn down the reverb and delay. Having it is appropriate for this kind of theme but it's like oregano, a little goes a long way.

In order of instruments for levels:

Lead piano
Keyboard Harmony
drums and bass harmony
vocals = for this theme it seems like the vocals are meant to be like a nice background whisper rather than a focal point. At the current level it invades and takes the front every time.
diggerydoo = powerful sound that will pervade at low levels. It sounds like an airplane engine at where it is currently.

Credit scenes:

This took five minutes to sit through and it was only a slideshow and credits. I would trim it to two at most. The more time I spend waiting to play a game I'm not already siked about the less likely I will want to wait the next five minutes of text pasta to actually do something. I would either change the intro to some interesting scenes that reveal some prologue without dialogue, make it skipable, trim it radically, or put the credits at the end and on the start menu screen like most pro's do.

Gameplay:

Stamina bar:
This is a useless feature that is implemented pretty sloppy. Why do I have a run stamina bar? I have played for almost two hours and have not had to run from anything where I would actually have to monitor such a bar. It is just a meaningless inconvenience rather than a gameplay feature at this point. Plus it refills ridiculously fast further making it's existence pointless. Also it appears in places where I can't run anyway like the world map. And it has an odd glitch where it will dwindle rapidly if you press shift right after leaving a battle scene. And finally it depletes whether you are moving or not by holding down the shift key.

Lighting and screen tints:
Avoid using lighting for just because i think it's cool. Lighting needs to serve purpose of creating meaningful focal points on maps to draw the players attention to them as well as manipulated to create different ambiances. You also need to screen your tinting changes much like how the curtain falls in theatre to screen the scene changes. Use the fade out command before your screen tint commands then do fade in. It's a bit jarring and amateurish to have the screen tints implemented live on the map while I'm playing.

Battle balancing and rewards:
First the white mage is overpowered. Second the sword techs for the main character seem pretty irrelevant since they tend to miss and not incur a status effect even when they do hit. It's a kind of a hey let's waste a turn button at the moment. The battle rewards are all over the place. Took me like six minutes to kill a hoard of some random bugs and I'm rewarded with like less than fifty gp which is half the price of a simple healing item and 1/4 the price of an inn stay in that area. Heal all is way overpowered for its cost and makes the heal spell obsolete. Second what's with the simple hey here's almost ten thousand gp chest in the easily discovered chest at the wall? It's like you are going out of your way to take away any sort of challenge to this game. You need to think of effort/risk for reward.

Mapping and Gameflow:

Aesthetics:
The interior mapping is pretty bad for most places that aren't dungeons. All your npc's live in empty cubes that have a bed a dresser, and lots of covered pottery. The exterior maps in general have too much decorative tile. It seems like the npc's want to fill up every patch of grass with vegetables and flowers even when it makes no sense to do so. You need to consider utility of housing and spaces to create some believability which in turn causes immersion.

As far as I can tell the reason you were able to make this a 25 hour game is that it's almost nothing but walking through large maps and dungeons with random encounters and simple lack of context boss fights. There is very little to explore in the settled areas and dungeons. Outside the various treasure chests there are few interactive objects to make exploration immersive to any degree. Also the player is totally shackled by the plot. I can't go anywhere the plot won't allow, nor is there anything to do aside fulfill plot goals. What's worse is you seem to toss up meaningless choices in dialogue at times despite the fact the game won't really continue unless you say yes. This wouldn't be such a problem if the story itself was totally engrossing, but so far that isn't the case.

Writing:

Characters
Your characters don't seem to have any conflicts which would create growth in them. Your main character is the empty shell from another universe who, for reasons that are just inexplicable, allows himself to be bossed around by all the npc's (particularly the outgoing precocious anime girl). Other than the token I don't want to do this reluctance of the first one minute of the game our hero just shuts up and embraces his apparent destiny to defeat Radasol. The main character being from another reality should be in existential crisis being trapped in a strange land that behaves as if he belongs. And instead he just shrugs his shoulders and says to himself, "time to go kill radasol, i guess" and goes. Your wasting a perfectly good premise to exploit for immersion and character development. Other than the throwaway jokes about stuff that doesn't exist in the game world it's wasted.

The party npc's are pretty garden variety also-rans. The red head is typical outgoing precocious anime girl, a Mary Poppins that every introverted Otaku hopes will descend from the ether and push their basement dwelling butts to glory and self actualization by fulfilling all of her random tasks. Sylar is a somewhat smarmy and seems to define himself by his duties. Rather empty so far aside from the attitude he likes to give Tellah Yasian. Yasian is just a reprise of Tellah from FFIV with a bit of Gandalf mixed in. And Baeon is so far just a goody two shoes with bricks for hands. Everyone just gets along perfectly fine with their role as the kingdom's sole saviors. They so far have been little more than their first impressions. Which leads me to believe that all these characters are simply defined by what they do rather than what they want. Which apparently is only to save Lorewyn from Radasol by following a very rigid plot arc. This isn't completely terrible, but they are unnoticable and could be exchanged with any of your townie npc's without missing a beat in group dynamics. Other than cracking wise on occasion there is no evidence of any relationships developing between the characters. No rivalries, friendships, learning, respect, etc. Just, "Hey we need to go to x now to do y and defeat Radasol. Insert LOTR/FFIV reference joke here."

The LOTR references are apropos since so far all I've done was walk around in this game.

Immersion
This game could really use more interactive objects and little details that makes your game into a more immersive world. So far your towns exist devoid of any commentary or detail about the struggles and culture of the world. Your npc's seem to only exist to tell your players what to do or where to go next. You'd be surprised how much more immersive things would be if you allowed the player to see slices of mundane life. The problem is simply that the game world has no character, no reality, outside of its plot. You should find other avenues to create this world. Have your npc's tell the story of what it is like to live here through their struggles as mundane as they might be. This is also a good way for your characters to define themselves as something more than "I'm here to crack wise and help the player defeat radasol." I could go on but I've got things to do.

Anyway it's good that it is playable and has a beginning and end. It would do better with some fine tuning and a bit less padding.

 

[glorious caesar]

based on that review i guess the surprise ending is "lol we know we're in a rpgmaker game"

 

[bastian]

Stamina bar:
This is a useless feature that is implemented pretty sloppy. Why do I have a run stamina bar?

You make a good point. The stamina script is broken and wouldn't allow me to implement it the way I wanted and I've meant to take it out all together, but never got around to it. I suppose I should just go ahead and take it out anyway.

Avoid using lighting for just because i think it's cool. Lighting needs to serve purpose of creating meaningful focal points on maps to draw the players attention to them as well as manipulated to create different ambiances.

Hm. I wasn't aware that I was overusing it. I thought I was only using it for reasonable places like fires and torches and such. I'll take a look around and see where it's being overused.

Use the fade out command before your screen tint commands then do fade in. It's a bit jarring and amateurish to have the screen tints implemented live on the map while I'm playing.

On this I totally disagree. I feel it's more realistic to see the tint change take effect, as if your eyes are adjusting to the new light level.

First the white mage is overpowered.

That's sort of the point. He goes on at length about how his ability is Strength. You'll find that as every one levels up, it balances him out.

Second the sword techs for the main character seem pretty irrelevant since they tend to miss and not incur a status effect even when they do hit.

That's extremely surprising to hear. I have them set up so they should be effective most of the time. But apparently that's not working for everyone. I'll take a look and see if I can see what the issue is there. On my play through they were super effective...

Heal all is way overpowered for its cost and makes the heal spell obsolete.

You're absolutely right. I noticed that too and forgot to fix it. I'mma do that now. :D

All your npc's live in empty cubes that have a bed a dresser, and lots of covered pottery.

I agree that the interior houses are awful. Admittedly I was going for realism there, since peasantry mainly lived in single room homes in that sort of era in Europe and the Americas. But it comes off as bland design. :/

It seems like the npc's want to fill up every patch of grass with vegetables and flowers even when it makes no sense to do so.

See... I disagree. I feel like it makes sense for them to grow their own vegetables. But perhaps I did overdo it a bit in retrospect.

There is very little to explore in the settled areas and dungeons.

Hm. I find that curious, because each dungeon has plenty of places to explore and things to find off the beaten path... Maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning.

Also the player is totally shackled by the plot. I can't go anywhere the plot won't allow, nor is there anything to do aside fulfill plot goals.

While that is certainly true in the first third of the game, you'll find in the last half or so that that is not the case; you are given several objectives which you can fulfill in a variety of orders. But, yes, this is not a game with minigames or non-plot driven fetch quests or anything of the sort, mainly because I personally find those sorts of non-plot quests boring and never have any interest in fulfilling them. However, I'm not making games for me, but for others and will endeavor to put such things in future games even if I personally find them pointless and boring.

That being said, there are four optional secret dungeons and six secret bosses towards the end of the game that the play can opt into if they want.

What's worse is you seem to toss up meaningless choices in dialogue at times despite the fact the game won't really continue unless you say yes.

That is completely incorrect. I can't think of a single time the player is given dialog options but is forced to say "Yes" to continue.

Your main character is the empty shell from another universe

That's because the main character isn't mine, he/she is YOU. As such, I cannot write any sort of internal struggles for him/her. I took the "silent avatar" approach with Tyrin. It doesn't work for everyone, I know.

Your npc's seem to only exist to tell your players what to do or where to go next. You'd be surprised how much more immersive things would be if you allowed the player to see slices of mundane life.

This also confuses me because, yes, there are NPCs who basically exist for the sole purpose of hints. Yet there are nearly as many NPCs who have their own agendas and tell their own little stories. That you haven't noticed that is curious.

That being said, you've given me a lot to think about. Because obviously if you have such a radically different opinion on those items, that points to something that I might only be THINKING I'm doing but could actually be doing a lot more of.

 

[Mr_Smith]

I never did some sort of huge review on a game, and am not going to start on that this time. I do want to comment on some parts based on the topic and posts I've seen here.

To start on the topic design, I think the spoilers you put there are very redundant. Spoilers are used to hide large slaps of text or batches of screenshots from view, but your plot and characterdescriptions could really be shown right there. The screenshots are indeed things you can hide, as you have a lot of the.

To continue with Despains first post, he really is right when he says there is no incentive to download and play this game. In first grade secondary school we were told, when we had to talk about a book in front of class, that you should never hide something good about a book, or story, because you don't want to spoil it for others. You do the same here, you want to hide a lot of the story because you want us, readers, to experience it. Well, it's a shame you want to do that, as that is the reason I think most of us aren't going to download and play.

So fist made the largest review I've ever seen, let alone read, on these forums. You REALLY should pay attention to that, as I learned also new things about game design from it. Sidequests, mapping, characters, immersion, all of those things are very important and I've just realized that even more.
What strikes me though, is that you throw a lot of the advice away as "I simply do not agree." Yes, you gave some reasons, but I think you more or less evaded the critique.
Also answers as "That's extremely surprising to hear." It feels that you KNOW it is wrong indeed, but don't want to say it. Yes, you said So fist was right in times, I know that.

Things like the stamina-bar, that you know isn't working and that you wanted to take it out, but didn't have time for it. Well, for me that really are game-breakers, simple laziness to NOT take broken stuff out of your game. I'm not familiar with the system, but a feature like that shouldn't be hard to take out.

Well, I hope you can do something with the advice and critique we gave you, as we are really trying to help you.

 

[Chad Sexington]

To continue with Despains first post, he really is right when he says there is no incentive to download and play this game. In first grade secondary school we were told, when we had to talk about a book in front of class, that you should never hide something good about a book, or story, because you don't want to spoil it for others. You do the same here, you want to hide a lot of the story because you want us, readers, to experience it. Well, it's a shame you want to do that, as that is the reason I think most of us aren't going to download and play.

I agree, but I want to make another point:

I also have a project on HBGames. I advertise it here, but I also advertise it on my site and other relevant locations.

I always figured that the information I posted here (or on any other RPG Maker forum) is much different than the information I post anywhere else. Here, I give many more spoilers through text and screenshots. On my site, I keep the spoilers to a minimum. For me, my goal is to get it to the point where the vast majority of people whoever play my game come from other sources.

1) From here, I mostly want people who are already familiar with RMXP to play and critique the game so I can make it better.
2) From my site, I just want people to enjoy it.

My 2 cents.

 

[Mr_Smith]

Well, then you've pretty much said it yourself Chad, this is more of a critique place. Mostly I'm not in the mood to play RMXP games, so to comment well I need more information. It's a matter of preference though. Maybe we are more reluctant to download a game here.

 

[bastian]

I really think people are misunderstanding me. I am perfectly willing to take critique. In, fact, I'm GREAT at taking critique. However, as far as I'm concerned the game is completely done and has been for over a year. I'm only just now posting it on this site. It's had over 3500+ downloads (with the same supposedly non-hooking bit of information found here) and hundreds of people have either posted in various forums or messaged me personally about how much they loved completing it and how much they enjoyed it.

Is it the best game ever? Not by a long shot. It's my first game, and if I could start from scratch I would do a million things differently. But it's done; complete. And people are enjoying it as it is, so that's good enough for me.

So while I may agree with a piece of feedback, I also might have no intention of actually implementing it. I think that's only reasonable for a completed game. However, it also might certainly give me food for though for my two current games I'm working on. So even if I may seem dismissive about a piece of advice for THIS game, I'm by no means ignoring it and will possibly mull it over for my future games.

I hope that's clear now.

"That's extremely surprising to hear." It feels that you KNOW it is wrong indeed, but don't want to say it. Yes, you said So fist was right in times, I know that.

Well, that's surprising to hear because in those instances that phrase was used as a more polite way of saying "you're dead wrong." Some of the things mentioned were absolutely not accurate.

Things like the stamina-bar, that you know isn't working and that you wanted to take it out, but didn't have time for it. Well, for me that really are game-breakers, simple laziness to NOT take broken stuff out of your game. I'm not familiar with the system, but a feature like that shouldn't be hard to take out.

It's not hard to take out, I just never did because it slipped my mind because it's NOT gamebreaking. It works perfectly fine as is. However, it's superfluous in an RPG. It basically mimics the dash system in Secret of Mana which is completely unnecessary in an RPG, not to mention that the script was broken and wouldn't allow me to adjust the amount of time it takes to replenish the dash bar (it replenishes much too quickly causing the need to rest between dashes moot).

 

[glorious caesar]

okay i downlaoded this and i started to a let's play video. i didn't even save it because i got bored and quit as soon as i got to the castle. it's great that this is your first game and now that you've stated that it's finished and you're not taking feedback anymore—i totally get that actually. you want to put this behind you and focus on the future. good for you.

here's some feedback to think about for your future projects:

i was bored as hell during your five-minute opening credit sequence (which all it did was show screenshots? come on). really. don't do this. i was recording my narration during this and pretty much it was me saying "this is boring let's get to the game arleady" a hundred times. we can see screenshots in the thread. nobody wants to watch five minutes of a slow sreenshot slideshow superimposed with the names of every scripter on here and rmvx.net.

the biggest reason i stopped playing is that your font is absolutely hideous. it's one thing to use a cool medieval font in titles or captions—but in every message box, it's horrible. an absolutely eyesore and it felt like i was FIGHTING against the font. i skipped pretty much every message box (and there are a LOT of them) because i did'nt want to read it.

also for the "ENTER YOUR REAL NAME" i put "dicks". don't push people too hard into that kind of thing. it makes them want to play along even less.

 

[Mr_Smith]

I also agree with Despain that you don´t want to change much to the game, it´s finished indeed.

However, to clarify the game-breaking for me, that means I absolutely can't stand a feature not working. Real game-breaking is indeed what it is, game-breaking/ending/whatever. I said game-breaking because it would ruin the game for me.

 

[homefellas87]

Thanks dear Bestian, for share the great information about this game. really i m very appreciated to this...

 

[BaraYaoiManga]

This game looks and sounds awesome <3
The itself is also fun to play.
9/10