University Game: Thompson Chronicles Demo

[ShadowFish]

Game Description
This is a comedic/light-hearted RPG set on an American university campus.  At this point, it is fairly linear, but will eventually branch out to have more open gameplay.

Download for the demo
^updated version, now without the glitch mentioned at the bottom of the post and with a rudimentary example of the silliness counter

Story Synopsis
Chase Radley, a sophomore at Thompson University, wakes up one morning to find almost everyone in his dorm gone.  Neither he nor his roommate, Peter, remember the night before.  They meet up with their floormate Chiela to explore the campus, looking for clues about what's happened to the school.  Their expedition is hampered by deranged students and vicious animals that try to attack them as they go about restoring order at the university.

Characters
Chase
Age: 20
Chase is mute and hasn't decided his major.  There's really very little to say about him, because he is mute.  He wears a white and red jacket.  ...yeah.

Peter
Age: 19
Peter is a pre-health major who is very conscientious about his grades.  He is very upset about the strange events at the university, and wants little to do with the dangers facing the exploratory party.

Chiela
Age: 20
Chiela is friendly to those that she respects, but has little tolerance for weirdos or morons.  She studies a lot, but hasn't decided on an area of focus yet.

Screens
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/ ... nshot1.png[/img]

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/ ... nshot2.png[/img]

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/ ... nshot3.png[/img]

Planned updates for next version:
-Use of the "silliness counter," a gauge that measures how ridiculous the player has acted.  Depending on the Silliness Level, events may play out differently.
-More relevant enemy names and graphics
-General expansion, more non-linear aspects
-Add a gym between the dorm and admin building
-Have someone in the tutorial give the player a map
-Log of information players have encountered in the Art Department (potentially, depending on demand)

Eventual updates
-Complete world map (currently, there's only a northeast corner)
-More departments and greater number of accessible majors

Potential Questions/Comments:

Q: Why are your graphics so inconsistent?
A: Because we're not really focusing on that at this time.  That, and most of them are 1st try graphics that weren't re-done.  We're going for bare-bones at this point.  I'm happy we're not still using Ralph.

Q: Your plot is rubbish.
A: 1) it's the beginning of the game, and 2) we know that.  It's a work in progress.  The characters may still be overhauled.  Any suggestions are appreciated.

Q: Your maps are ghetto, too.
A: Yeah.  It's not so easy making maps when all of your tilesets are pretty much irrelevant to your setting.  I mean, yeesh, I could use some couches!  But admittedly there are a lot of big problems that could have been avoided (because this is our first RPG Maker effort and so some of these are our first maps ever).  It's just too much of a pain to do things like shrink the world map.

Q: Can I have your tilesets?
A: Sure.  Send me a message and I'll give you what you're looking for.  (I'm mostly just flattered if you want to use anything)

Q: Can I help?
A: YES!  We'd love to hear what you can do, even if it's just pitch ideas.

Helping Out
If you'd like to contribute to the project, we can use help in all sorts of ways.
I suspect that most people will be able to contribute to plot and character development.  This game doesn't really have a plot right now, and it can always use more characters.  If you want to help in these areas, it'd be much appreciated!
If you have a character you'd like included in the game, let me know who the character is and what s/he'd be majoring in (or teaching, if it's an older character).  Depending on what we work out for the plot, we will probably be able to use suggested characters.  I can elaborate more on what I mean by this if it's unclear.

We'd also especially like this information:
-How long did you play the game for before you completed the demo?
-How was the difficulty level, both in terms of battle and puzzles?
Thanks for all feedback and comments!

Known glitch: As of right now, the game has an error in the last scene of the demo in which Chase spawns in the wrong place.  We're working to fix it and will re-upload once it's fixed.

Credits
Half of this program was done by LabDesian.  I just happen to have been the one who posted about it.
Also, thanks to zeRobuRn on rpgmakervx.net for helping LD program the Quizzing Glass item.
And credit to anyone who sequenced the MIDIs that we used.  I don't know your names, but if you recognize your MIDI, tell me and I'll put them up :P

Spoiler: Paranoid Copyright Info and Such (lots of caps)

© Copyright 2008 Sarah Herman and Gregory Herman, All rights reserved.

The authors grant you the right to run this program (the “Programâ€

 

[dadevvtsvre]

Wow. No comments yet, quite surprising. Anyway, I guess I'll post my thoughts.

Well, the overall plot seems pretty okay. It's most certainly not the first game to be set in a university, but I haven't seen many made with any RPG Maker. Also, if this game is set in modern times, which I'm pretty sure it is (you may want to specify that, however) then the VX RTP doesn't really fit with that. Yes, I know, VX has hardly any custom tilesets out. It's just that I believe they were made for a fantasy-type setting, and they look kind of weird in a modern game. I mean, you could definitely make it work, but some character sets just look a little different for a modern type setting.

Anyway, I'll try the demo out later, and give you some tips. Good luck to you  :wink:

Oh, and I suggest removing the "Copyright" thing. I mean, really, who's going to copyright this game? I just think it's kind of weird that you have it there, and really, it's kind of pointless. But meh, your decision.

 

[ShadowFish]

Wow. No comments yet, quite surprising. Anyway, I guess I'll post my thoughts.

Well, the overall plot seems pretty okay. It's most certainly not the first game to be set in a university, but I haven't seen many made with any RPG Maker. Also, if this game is set in modern times, which I'm pretty sure it is (you may want to specify that, however) then the VX RTP doesn't really fit with that. Yes, I know, VX has hardly any custom tilesets out. It's just that I believe they were made for a fantasy-type setting, and they look kind of weird in a modern game. I mean, you could definitely make it work, but some character sets just look a little different for a modern type setting.

Anyway, I'll try the demo out later, and give you some tips. Good luck to you  :wink:

Oh, and I suggest removing the "Copyright" thing. I mean, really, who's going to copyright this game? I just think it's kind of weird that you have it there, and really, it's kind of pointless. But meh, your decision.

Out of curiosity, what other games have been set in a university?  I don't know of any.  I don't play freeware or PC games, so if there are any there, I wouldn't know about them.  But re: console games, there are none that I've heard of.

We're working on adding more modern things to it.  Many university buildings ARE in a gothic-revival-ish style.  Not that I don't want more modern touches.  I'd like some sliding glass doors, for example.  And I'm adding things to Tileset E slowly (you won't see most of them in this release).

I know the copyright sounds like it's a bit overboard, but *shrug* you don't have to look at it if you don't want to.  And besides, I'm a law student.  It's the sort of thing I approve of. 

Thanks for your comments, and I look forward to your feedback on the demo.

 

[dadevvtsvre]

Okay, I didn't quite finish the demo, but I played a fair bit of it.

Just a few thoughts here. I really didn't like the face sets at all. Also, the worst part was definitely the maps. The first hallway was really horrible, and the outside was worse. The game lagged like crazy because the map was absolutely HUGE! Not to mention it was nearly ALL blank space.

Well, the music was pretty good, I guess. I LOVE the fact that you used a remixed Earthbound song. (Probably because I'm a huge Earthbound fan) But the outside music didn't really fit it at all. I'm guessing that's Super Mario Galaxy music-am I right? Anyway, I really think you should re-do nearly all the maps (ESPECIALLY the outside one-I mean, at least add some trees or something) But it's nice to see some non-serious games once in a while. Well, good luck with it.

By the way, I know of a few games set in schools/universities. Off the top of my head, though, The Sims: University and Bully come to mind.

And one more thing-how come when I fight one of those guys with a turban on their heads, I end up fighting two slimes? It just doesn't make sense  :crazy:

 

[ShadowFish]

Okay, I didn't quite finish the demo, but I played a fair bit of it.

Just a few thoughts here. I really didn't like the face sets at all. Also, the worst part was definitely the maps. The first hallway was really horrible, and the outside was worse. The game lagged like crazy because the map was absolutely HUGE! Not to mention it was nearly ALL blank space.

Well, the music was pretty good, I guess. I LOVE the fact that you used a remixed Earthbound song. (Probably because I'm a huge Earthbound fan) But the outside music didn't really fit it at all. I'm guessing that's Super Mario Galaxy music-am I right? Anyway, I really think you should re-do nearly all the maps (ESPECIALLY the outside one-I mean, at least add some trees or something) But it's nice to see some non-serious games once in a while. Well, good luck with it.

By the way, I know of a few games set in schools/universities. Off the top of my head, though, The Sims: University and Bully come to mind.

And one more thing-how come when I fight one of those guys with a turban on their heads, I end up fighting two slimes? It just doesn't make sense  :crazy:

Good point about the blank space.  We'll work on that.  But could you be more specific about the problems with the maps?  I know there's a lot of pointless green space in the overworld and a really ugly couch in the dorm hallway, but otherwise?  I'm pretty new to this and don't really know what people look for.
Also, could you be more specific about the faces?  Do you mean the ones that I drew, and if so, what's the problem with them? 

The Mario Galaxy music is intentionally incongruous.  It's supposed to be ironic: "epic adventure" style when they're totally not on an epic adventure. 

We recognized the issue with the pirates (that's what we call the turban dudes) turning into slimes.  It'll be fixed in the next release, but if you don't like my faces, I doubt you'll like the Evil Student images any better.
Later on, we have dogs that turn into rats and spiders and ghosts :P

BTW, I just remembered, regarding lag: I believe I've heard of an anti-lag script?  We knew about the lag problem and figured there was nothing to be done about it.  But if someone could direct me towards something appropriate for getting rid of it (b/c the overworld is pretty annoying), it'd be much appreciated.