Dead Content To Anywhere

[seven]

PM'ed one to ya.

 

[Neverplayd]

Well, I beat the castle dungeon, so I think I've played enough for now. I like the world concept that you are doing, since a new style for an area brings a refreshing change after every dungeon. There were a few problems map/event-wise though.

Spoiler: Panorama under Castle

http://img8.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/2527/2527237627c820a60aac8464a3288426982a8fd.jpg[/img]
You can see the panorama under this castle, which is probably because you didn't put a lower layer floor tile under it. It isn't really major, but I just wanted to point it out. The same error is also on the other side of the castle.

Spoiler: Text in wrong position

http://img4.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/2527/2527238440778bb7647e2dd14598a5ea75efebd.jpg[/img]
The text here is supposed to be over the person, but it is floating over an invisible event. Another minor error that can be easily fixed. The other soldier that is on the cliff's text isn't even visible from where he is

The battle system is a bit annoying at times as well. It doesn't freeze the enemies when my character has filled his agility bar. This makes it hard for me to choose effective tactics to beat the enemies and just encourages button mashing to quickly get the most hits. Also when I was trying to use a salve to heal my hero in the tutorial dungeon, I was attacked by a blood slime which ended up killing my hero and using up my last salve. I would suggest pausing enemy movement if at all possibly when the agility bar is filled.
It was a very addicting game that practically ate up my whole afternoon today, so good job on it.
I'll try and play more later,
~Neverplayd

Edit: Do you mean this F12 Disable script? (scroll down to the bottom if you don't want to download the demo)
Edit2: Oh, KRoP beat me to it :/

 

[regi]

Hey, Doc. You've been doing a big favor to the community with all your reviews, so I decided to give your project a go. Here are some random things I noted as I progressed along the game. It's not very organized but it should do.

Spoiler

-nice intro cutscene. good atmosphere with the scrolling and all.
-ew, the menu. the background isn't very appealing, and the text could be easier to read.
-damn this guy moves waaaay too slow-- owait he can run. Very useful, although maybe you could give a little hint to the player instead of having them figure it out for themselves?

-I like the puzzles so far. interactivity using the "A" and "D" items is a nice touch. Those small things like the leaves falling after you slice a bush are noticeable and original.

-storyline seems decent so far. there's some cliche elements here already (amnesia, waking up from a "dream"-- I selected the Lune adventure, by the way, so it might be different if you chose a different character). but the way the story is presented makes up for it. although I hate those choice things, like "Find Mathias or Find Zara". you really have NO clue what's going on at that point and which choice will do what so you just have to randomly pick.

-you need a bit of work with town maps. outdoors is a bit empty, but otherwise okay. the indoors, though, are humongous. I don't see why one old lady should live alone in a mansion. try cleaning up on some empty space.

-god, the battles. Neverplayd touched up on some of the things I want to bring up.
  First off, I have to say I hate the active time battle system. There are a LOT of choice windows (Attack, Arkanes, Skill, Item, Defend, etc). It's annoying to scroll through them, then select a skill or second choice that pops up while the enemy can still attack. It becomes more or less a case of button-mashing rather than tactics; and from all the skill and element types, status effects, etc. it seems like the latter is more important. Of course I'm exaggerating a little (and it's all opinion) but I'd like it a lot better if you could at least insert a choice to switch to a Wait timer.
  Also, the enemies are horribly annoying. They appear on the map (thank you no random battles), but the dungeons I've visited so far the maps are so small 90% of the time you end up fighting them anyway. It takes a long time to kill them because of all the healing/attacking/waiting you have to do. Maybe if you gave everyone less attack, but sped up the action/agility bar (or w/e you call it) it would be more fun to play.

-lastly, there are a couple of mapping glitches, but nothing too big.

I only got up to the save point in the tower, before the Wall guard fight. I'll continue adding notes when I play more. Anyway, you've got a solid project going here. Good job with it so far.

 

[Hevendor]

Stack level too deep is usually infinite recursion problems in scripts (or common events). Make two common events calling each other, then call one of them to set it off and watch the error if you're still curious. Don't bother much, just kill the reset key and be done with it.

anyway am downloading, I'll give it a small review tomorrow.

 

[Doctor]

I've listened to your comments and have already done my best to fix some of the recurring complaints. I've uploaded a new version that allows to select a "wait" active battle at the beginning. I've always hated how some games have their Active systems just stop whenever someone's action bar is filled, so the "wait" style only pauses the battle while selecting items, skills or arkanes. The battle remains active during enemy selection. If enough people demand it, I will put in a "super wait" option that stops the battle during enemy selection as well. For those of you who are already playing, if you want to, send me your savefiles and I'll put them in wait mode. You'll have to download the new version, though.

I've also fixed the visual bugs Neverplayd reported.

The F12 bug is still active, as one script required the SDK, which comes in conflict with other scripts I'm using, and the other makes the game go turbo instead of resetting when the F12 key is used.

-nice intro cutscene. good atmosphere with the scrolling and all.
-ew, the menu. the background isn't very appealing, and the text could be easier to read.

Yeah, I think I'll allow for multiple wallpaper eventually, if I can figure out how.

-damn this guy moves waaaay too slow-- owait he can run. Very useful, although maybe you could give a little hint to the player instead of having them figure it out for themselves?

Someone eventually says it in the beginner's house in Castonbury. I think.

-I like the puzzles so far. interactivity using the "A" and "D" items is a nice touch. Those small things like the leaves falling after you slice a bush are noticeable and original.

-storyline seems decent so far. there's some cliche elements here already (amnesia, waking up from a "dream"-- I selected the Lune adventure, by the way, so it might be different if you chose a different character). but the way the story is presented makes up for it. although I hate those choice things, like "Find Mathias or Find Zara". you really have NO clue what's going on at that point and which choice will do what so you just have to randomly pick.

All characters share the same adventure for a reason that will be revealed later, but not in the demo. All that change are their stats, some lines, some reactions and some minor events. I know the amnesia thing is a little cliché, but there isn't a lot of ways to have the main character with a heavy background to not already know a lot ahead of the player. The amnesia fades rather quickly, though, and it is explained later.

And about the choice thing, I've always enjoyed how some games give you multiple choices to select from, it makes the whole thing much more interactive. The truth about that particular choice is that originally, a different scene was taking place there, but I found it too corny and rushed so it was scrapped, but I had already made the split path thing and needed a way to implement it. Besides, the protagonist too has no idea of what's going on at that point. You just have to make a choice.

-you need a bit of work with town maps. outdoors is a bit empty, but otherwise okay. the indoors, though, are humongous. I don't see why one old lady should live alone in a mansion. try cleaning up on some empty space.

I don't see what I could add to the outdoors without cluttering it. And the indoors are set to match the size of the house in the outside. And the old lady planning to piano mentions that she used to live with her husband and son, who are now dead.

-god, the battles. Neverplayd touched up on some of the things I want to bring up.
  First off, I have to say I hate the active time battle system. There are a LOT of choice windows (Attack, Arkanes, Skill, Item, Defend, etc). It's annoying to scroll through them, then select a skill or second choice that pops up while the enemy can still attack. It becomes more or less a case of button-mashing rather than tactics; and from all the skill and element types, status effects, etc. it seems like the latter is more important. Of course I'm exaggerating a little (and it's all opinion) but I'd like it a lot better if you could at least insert a choice to switch to a Wait timer.

Already fixed it. And I know it seems like a lot of options, but there are really only one more than the usual game has. Attack, Skills, magic, item, (no one uses defend), and escape. It's a bit disorienting at first, but you should become familiar with it very fast.

  Also, the enemies are horribly annoying. They appear on the map (thank you no random battles), but the dungeons I've visited so far the maps are so small 90% of the time you end up fighting them anyway. It takes a long time to kill them because of all the healing/attacking/waiting you have to do. Maybe if you gave everyone less attack, but sped up the action/agility bar (or w/e you call it) it would be more fun to play.

Really? I avoided the enemies quite easily. Some are required to be fought, but that's the case in every game. Besides, if you just run from everything, eventually you'll just fight the boss and go "My HP is too low, I have no skills, what can I do?" I hear you when you say it's a bit long, but you only have one character for now. Once you get two or three, it'll go faster, and you will wish you'll have more time to input commands.

 

[Neverplayd]

Ah, I didn't check whether the F12 script required SDK or not. Have you tried Zeriab's F12 Fix Script? If that doesn't work, then I'm not sure what else you could use...

 

[Doctor]

I guess that could work. Thanks...

Here we go for another reuploading...

EDIT: Reuploading complete, the F12 bug should now be eliminated, and with it the stack error. Hopefully. Maybe.

 

[Avadan]

Ok... I started playing and so far the cutscenes are great, the music selection is awsome (for the cutscenes.... so far XD), though I think the battle theme breaks a little the state of lethargy the game has (I`ll gueass thats intentional... but you are loosing the harmony of the game)
Battles are kinda slow... to slow, just watching those bars get filled... maybe you could make the characters bounce a little.

... the menu is horrible, horrible!... I was afraid to equip something cuz I`m sure every time I look at that menu I loose one year of life. I thought "man, it cant get worse than this" untill I saw the saving menu... my myopia must have jumped to 6 diopters. So I´m suing you! XD
Nah, really... try to soften the contrast a little, it breaks all the eyecandy your game has.

Got killed on the second(or third?) dungeon... yeah yeah  I know... should have gone after Zara instead...

I`ll try to finish the demo later and post some more thoughts
... so far its a good game... just not my cup of tea

Edit: Oh, your sense of passability is kinda awkward one must always be zigzagging (up, left, up, left, up, left)

 

[JJannem]

they still dosent work.... :/

 

[mawk]

Are you using the Japanese or Postality Knights version of RMXP? If either is the case, you should download the English installer from http://tkool.jp/products/rpgxp/eng/ and re-install the RTP from that.

I'm not sure if that could account for your font problems, but PK has a long history of being crappy and incompatible with just about everything legit.

 

[Doctor]

Ok... I started playing and so far the cutscenes are great, the music selection is awsome (for the cutscenes.... so far XD), though I think the battle theme breaks a little the state of lethargy the game has (I`ll gueass thats intentional... but you are loosing the harmony of the game)

A lot of people (well, 3) have said that about the music. I will consider finding something better eventually.

Battles are kinda slow... to slow, just watching those bars get filled... maybe you could make the characters bounce a little.

I have a lot of differing opinions on the matter, it seems. Some people think the battle are instead too fast, and simply button mash their way through out of fear of being attack during the menu selection, a strategy that should already have brought them to a premature game over screen.

When you'll have four characters in your party (which is actually very easy to do as soon as you've completed the castle), you'll be happy the battle bars take a little long and the monsters aren't too fast.

... the menu is horrible, horrible!... I was afraid to equip something cuz I`m sure every time I look at that menu I loose one year of life. I thought "man, it cant get worse than this" untill I saw the saving menu... my myopia must have jumped to 6 diopters. So I´m suing you! XD
Nah, really... try to soften the contrast a little, it breaks all the eyecandy your game has.

Awright, awright, I'll try. But the graphics for that menu are a bitch to do.

Got killed on the second(or third?) dungeon... yeah yeah  I know... should have gone after Zara instead...

Choosing Zara does make the quest easier in terms of battle, because you are given a second character right away that knows a healing spell and has lots of SP. But completing the castle by choosing Mathias is also perfectly possible. You just have to make sure you have a lot of salves. remember to talk to every soldier you rescue, they sometimes have very good items to give away. If you run out of supplies, there is a merchant in the servant's quarters, first floor leftmost room. Here's a hint: Head to the dungeons right away to free Mathias from his cell.

I`ll try to finish the demo later and post some more thoughts
... so far its a good game... just not my cup of tea

Not your cup of tea, what exactly do you mean by that? I'm not familiar with the expression.

Edit: Oh, your sense of passability is kinda awkward one must always be zigzagging (up, left, up, left, up, left)

:\ I remember one instance of one narrow passageway at the beginning that requires you to do that, the rest... well, I'm not using an 8-direction script, so yeah, you have to zigzag.

 

[seven]

Not your cup of tea, what exactly do you mean by that? I'm not familiar with the expression.

Something simillar to "not my style".

I'm not using an 8-direction script

Well you should.
It's actually not that hard to do, I mean with some of them you don't have to use customized characters so it's pretty much plug 'n' play.

 

[Doctor]

Not your cup of tea, what exactly do you mean by that? I'm not familiar with the expression.

Something simillar to "not my style".

I'm not using an 8-direction script

Well you should.
It's actually not that hard to do, I mean with some of them you don't have to use customized characters so it's pretty much plug 'n' play.

I will... think about it.

 

[Juno]

Hey Doc, there were a couple of things I forgot to write down when I was giving you feedback.  Minor things, but here they are:

Spoiler: Not spoiling anything, just don't want to clutter the thread

First, I thought the Inn music effect was too long.  Not a big deal since you don't have to visit it all that often, but I thought I would mention it.  Second, going up and down the long, multi-room staircases can be tedious (like going up to the bridge across the castle, and back down, especially when the closest save point is at the top.)  It makes sense to have the player trudge up those staircases to show the scope of where they're going, but instead of forcing them to do it every time, you could make them manually walk up/down the stairs through all the rooms the FIRST time, and any time after that, just set the player to transparent when they walk to the door to the staircase, then scroll the map up or down, and have the player reappear at the other end.  The player still has a sense of how far they've traveled, but they don't have to go through each identical room every time.

 

[min chan]

I hate to be that guy.. but megaupload doesn't work for me. And I'm pretty sure there will be others with the same problem. So if it's not too much trouble, could you upload it on a another site too?

I like these screenshots a lot and the story is very interesting to not give this game a try.

 

[Crystalgate]

2-3 hours of gameplay? I just unlocked a sidequest/feature that looks like it can take quite a lot of time. I must say it looks fun.

Spoiler

I'm really glad I choose darkness for the main character, the bleeding did far more damage than anything else I could throw at the boss.

I spotted some bugs in the fairy village.

1) The builder fairy will not be in it's building site if you enter a building and exit. Instead it will start at it's normal position and then go crazy over the whole island.

2) You can walk off the ground into the void. You can usually exit the ground upwards and sideways.

3) If I approach the rabbit hole from the north, the main character will jump away from the hole instead of into it.

 

[Doctor]

I hate to be that guy.. but megaupload doesn't work for me. And I'm pretty sure there will be others with the same problem. So if it's not too much trouble, could you upload it on a another site too?

I like these screenshots a lot and the story is very interesting to not give this game a try.

Alrighty. Uploaded the file to filefront as well.

2-3 hours of gameplay? I just unlocked a sidequest/feature that looks like it can take quite a lot of time. I must say it looks fun.

Spoiler

I'm really glad I choose darkness for the main character, the bleeding did far more damage than anything else I could throw at the boss.

I spotted some bugs in the fairy village.

1) The builder fairy will not be in it's building site if you enter a building and exit. Instead it will start at it's normal position and then go crazy over the whole island.

2) You can walk off the ground into the void. You can usually exit the ground upwards and sideways.

3) If I approach the rabbit hole from the north, the main character will jump away from the hole instead of into it.

That feature is quite underdevelopped for the time being. There is only 3 available tennants. Try and see if you can find them :\

The Tesseract is meant to be something akin to Bof2's township, but with a little more freedom.

Still, thank you for reporting the bugs. And a tip: Recruit the fairy Yoleii into your team, she has insanely high agility and magic, and makes the Sky Garden (assuming you didn't complete it yet) a breeze. Just make sure to obtain "Yoleii's number" from her first.

As a matter of fact, I'm interested in knowing what characters everyone are using.

 

[Crystalgate]

I'm using Soleil with Axe and Darkness selected, Mathias, Evelyn and Yoleii.

Anyway, I have a question.

Spoiler

I'm in the cursed pyramid. I came cursed to a floor that would block my path with spikes. I removed almost all of the curse and then returned. The spikes won't follow me anymore, but I'm unable to go past the holes even though the spikes are retracted. What exactly is supposed to happen?

 

[Doctor]

My mistake. Another bug. Here we go for reuploading madness.

 

[Volrath]

Those fucking mushrooms are the anti-Christ.

Also, was that a game-ending bug you just fixed? If so, I'll need to redownload if I want to be able to finish it for the review. Assuming of course I can even get through this cave without getting my ass handed to me.