Vacant Sky Complete Edition: Act I+ Released!

[Sailerius]

Heads up, everyone. Although Act II is technically done, it's still going through beta testing. I hate to go back on my word, but I think I'm going to hold onto it for another couple days to make sure it doesn't have as many bugs as Act I did. Sorry to disappoint, guys.

 

[Ikariz]

That's fine, I'd rather play a thoroughly playtested and relatively bug-free Act II then a rushed one.

 

[action]

Really can't wait for Act II (Tarranon pretty much forced me into wanting to play it, said to expect better "everything")
But I'm glad you're doing a more thorough check this time - the bugs last time annoyed me...
Really looking forward to an improvement in dialogue, which I hope you worked harder on.

One thing you may want to fix next Act, unless it's not too hard for this one during beta, is move the text in the message-boxes over a little, as they overlap the facegraphics, and sometimes make it hard to read.

For now,
-abreaction

 

[Sailerius]

Sorry for the delay, guys. The release candidate is uploading now, so after that's tested, it'll go live. Look forward to Act II early tomorrow!

 

[Sailerius]

It's here!!!

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VD2VJDNO
2shared: http://www.2shared.com/file/10476465/b0 ... on_Ac.html
WPI GDC: http://gdc.wpi.edu/Vacant_Sky_Vol_1_Con ... Act_II.zip

 

[Tylinos]

Because Act II is out, I figured I'd post a picture from beta testing. Using a spoiler box just in case.

Spoiler

 

[Crystalgate]

Is it OK to start a new game or will Auria's stats be messed up unless I load a save from Act I?

 

[ganonfrog]

Is it OK to start a new game or will Auria's stats be messed up unless I load a save from Act I?

They won't be messed up if you start a new game, but they generally aren't as good as they would be if you loaded a game. It's still very much possible to play the game starting from Act II.

But I guess I can be generous and put up my Act I save file up for people to use if they really need it. I have an almost entirely Def based Auria with some Atk, and a pretty decent number of items. I'm not going to hand it out freely though, so PM me if you desperately need a save file. XD

 

[Crystalgate]

I think I just replay act I, but thanks for the offer anyway.

 

[ganonfrog]

I think I just replay act I, but thanks for the offer anyway.

No problem. Good luck.

 

[Tylinos]

Decided to add a few more beta testing screenshots in addition to the one in my above post. A few contain minor spoilers, but you should probably have played the game before looking anyway.

Spoiler

 

[Ikariz]

I just finished Act II and thought I'd give a bit of commentary. I liked the twist in the memoirs room, I wasn't quite expecting that. Also, good to see more battle encounters and roaming monsters on certain maps, that was a nice add-in for this Act. The ending was sad, very sad indeed and very unexpected.

Spoiler

Rayonne killed Mia *sniff* and I was just starting to love her. I must honestly say had I personally been Auria, I probably would have destroyed the world.

I know you haven't posted a poll for Act II up yet, but I thought I'd voice my opinions anyway. For Female, it would be Mia and for Male it would still be Weapon, even though Rayonne beats him, he's still a badass.

 

[Sailerius]

Wow, I can't believe someone already beat it. Thanks a lot for playing, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Would you mind moving "I must honestly say..." into the spoiler tag, though? Thanks.

 

[Ikariz]

Alright, sure, I should probably put the whole thing into the spoiler tag, but anyway, Yeah I'm addicted to your games <3; Can't wait for the next one and congrats on releasing Act II, I give it a 9/10

 

[Sailerius]

Alright, sure, I should probably put the whole thing into the spoiler tag, but anyway, Yeah I'm addicted to your games <3; Can't wait for the next one and congrats on releasing Act II, I give it a 9/10

Thanks again. Can you give me any suggestions on room for improvement? I want to really put my all into making sure the end of the game is as great as possible.

Also, out of curiosity, in which order did you complete the three dungeons?

 

[Ikariz]

Well, I don't know if you could personally improve upon this, however I found companions characters' technique progression to be a bit on the slow side. There were also a few times where I had to grind a bit just to gain a skill like slash II. There were a few times where I was genuinely lost on what to do next, so implementing a journal or something to show progress on the main track might be something to look into. As for the order I did the dungeons, I did the cave in Baniva first, then did the detective quest, then went to Orkan. If you want to discuss more, I have AIM. My AIM is IchiruShouten.

 

[ganonfrog]

Well, I don't know if you could personally improve upon this, however I found companions characters' technique progression to be a bit on the slow side. There were also a few times where I had to grind a bit just to gain a skill like slash II. There were a few times where I was genuinely lost on what to do next, so implementing a journal or something to show progress on the main track might be something to look into. As for the order I did the dungeons, I did the cave in Baniva first, then did the detective quest, then went to Orkan. If you want to discuss more, I have AIM. My AIM is IchiruShouten.

The first two concerns make sense, especially being bothered by the first one. It never really occured to me, but the party members, with a few exceptions, do tend to be a little dull as far as skills go. Thank you for pointing that out. It should be pretty easy to fix in the next act.

The thing with Slash II is that it's really just an upgraded version of the original slash. All skills go up a level when most party members hit levels 2, and 13 in this version. For Auria, they go up at 6 and 12. So you're not necessarily grinding for just that one tech. Instead, you're leveling to get your techs generally stronger. Though I guess you could have completely understandable complaints about that too, but that would be a different concern.

As far as the journal goes, there is one in the game already. It's one of the last options in the menu. It doesn't track your actions down to every step you need to take, but it does cover the basics of what you need to do in an area, and keeps track of sidequests you've done.

Thank you for the feedback though. We'll definitely look into fixing some of these things next act.

I'm also glad to hear you liked the game. The ending bit was my favorite part too (I'm just responsible for the sprites, really.) It really made the game for me.

 

[Daxis]

Anywyas, here's what I have on act 1 so far:

it's really annoying that all the battles leave you barely, barely alive- you've really got to have some luck that the enemies' attacks are spread out between your characters so that you don't die and miss out on the VERY VERY valuable EXP.

The death/game over consequences are, while not severe, are annoying. The save points, while somewhat abundant enough, are located at considerably inconvenient spots. Sometimes, when I died/wasted items at a battle and had to restart, it basically meant I had to walk all over and over again to finished this one quest or whatever. Cutscenes are somewhat short enough so that the penalty for dying doesn't suck too bad, but it's annoying.

It's a very linear progression, as you know. I don't really have a gripe with that. What I do mind is that all the towns and places you go to are large to make the aforementioned walking around pain. They ARE realistic, most everything, except for a square area every now and then, but it's mostly very good mapping.
The areas are large, especially that first town you enter. The quests and puzzles thing are very annoying because it mostly involves walking around, finding things, and making sure you don't missout on the things and treasures. While this is okay enough by itself, the linear progression of the plot stops you from going back and finishing those quests, which are really needed.
Then there comes the fact that there are many, many towns and maps(well, not THAT many, but relatively, I guess). These towns and whatever are all pretty huge, with lots of NPCs to talk about. Like before, these quests annoy in that you don't know who gives a quest or not, so you have to go all over and be explorative, which some may not find too fun.
PAssing through these areas constantly made me just want to skip these areas and just just get straight to the NPCs that matter and to the battles.

Also, the mapping is very ambigous on where the transfer areas are. This is especially true when you're in the plot progression, and then you have to talk to certain people/activate certain events to continue, all the meanwhile exploring all the sides of the map to see if there's more transfer events.

The battles are very fun, although hard, and there's a shame there's a lack of them- I'm an hour or two in the game right now, there's only been about ten battles so far, all event initiated of course. One of the annoying thing about it is that the battles come two at a time very often, and that's what kills me sometimes, where I'd think it'd be just one, and then leave auria's life 1 hit from death, and the next battle kills her immediately.

There's some various other things I would add, like some very minor textual problems where the text runs off the screen, and some other stuff, but I have to go now. Seeya.

 

[Sailerius]

Anywyas, here's what I have on act 1 so far:

it's really annoying that all the battles leave you barely, barely alive- you've really got to have some luck that the enemies' attacks are spread out between your characters so that you don't die and miss out on the VERY VERY valuable EXP.

Actually, EXP is communal. Whether a character is dead or not, or even in your party, everyone has the same amount of EXP.

The death/game over consequences are, while not severe, are annoying. The save points, while somewhat abundant enough, are located at considerably inconvenient spots. Sometimes, when I died/wasted items at a battle and had to restart, it basically meant I had to walk all over and over again to finished this one quest or whatever. Cutscenes are somewhat short enough so that the penalty for dying doesn't suck too bad, but it's annoying.

Could you give an example of savepoints being located at inconvenient places? I tried to place them right next to where a boss battle would occur (especially in the case of Boris Island, Ciel, and Mortagne).

It's a very linear progression, as you know. I don't really have a gripe with that. What I do mind is that all the towns and places you go to are large to make the aforementioned walking around pain. They ARE realistic, most everything, except for a square area every now and then, but it's mostly very good mapping.
The areas are large, especially that first town you enter. The quests and puzzles thing are very annoying because it mostly involves walking around, finding things, and making sure you don't missout on the things and treasures. While this is okay enough by itself, the linear progression of the plot stops you from going back and finishing those quests, which are really needed.

Yeah, that's something I'm aware of. >< Luckily, that's been resolved in Act II; you can freely go back to areas at will and complete sidequests that you missed out on or left in progress.

Also, the mapping is very ambigous on where the transfer areas are. This is especially true when you're in the plot progression, and then you have to talk to certain people/activate certain events to continue, all the meanwhile exploring all the sides of the map to see if there's more transfer events.

Could you give an example of where the ambiguity in transfer areas is?

The battles are very fun, although hard, and there's a shame there's a lack of them- I'm an hour or two in the game right now, there's only been about ten battles so far, all event initiated of course. One of the annoying thing about it is that the battles come two at a time very often, and that's what kills me sometimes, where I'd think it'd be just one, and then leave auria's life 1 hit from death, and the next battle kills her immediately.

The only time that there's two battles in a row is the caravan fight, which I admit was pretty unfair. Save points fully heal you and there's always at least one between battles.

Thanks for playing so far. I know Act I can be kind of hard to get through, but hopefully it doesn't deter you from trying out Act II.

 

[Daxis]

I so did not know that EXP was communal. I was focusing on never dying so that I don't waste anything......
Early in the game, after you meet some virad and try to escape from them using the gate, you're at the beachish town, and then you go to that next town? The save point is right on the upper left corner of the town, and basically had to move around a lot.
I think right there is also a double fight. Another double fight I remember is where you fight for the 1st time- although you don't NEED to win, I'm a pretty big perfectionist.

An example of ambigous mapping are the earlier maps, where you're just walking all around. I know that when Auria first appears in that bed in alibaas and meets the other two, I didn't know if there were any others maps or not.
In the beachish town where you just escaped from the virad using gates, I went ALL the way to the right, there were no maps apparently, while the left side had an extra map(with very little people/things too.) The transfer at that place was inconvenient, because I'm holding holding down the left directional button, and then when you transfer suddenly I have to go up, and by the left D button held down, I'm transferred back.

One of the reasons that I'm looking for all these transfers in the 1st place is because this IS and rpg, and in being so, I'd believe there comes a point where you can revisit everything. I mean, way too much of your effort is spent on these awesome maps if they're just there for 10 minutes.

Er anyways...

I believe there is a F12 bug, if you didn't know. When you're playing the game, and you want to reset it or whatever, and press the f12, everything messes up; the initial project bc logo doesn't show up, movements are messed up, a whole bunch of things.

Earlier, I think in the small foresty area with the virad and the gates, you can choose to just ask a lot about alibaas and virad. Maybe you should incorporate that into different areas, because giving too much info at once is a bit hard to sink in.

Also- it took a moment to realize what most of the places and names were talking about- what's the UN, the Blackguard, the Virad, Disparatus was the name of the world?- may hill or whatever auria's hometown is, is a province, and having no provinces is weird? Although I figure all of it would be explained soon enough, it's a bit O.O to see it all at once, and having to go along with it.(I'm pretty sure most of this is early on in the game anyways).

By the way, I never figured out/or missed out on why dejras and seri allowed Auria to travel with them anyways.

There's a bit more stuff to add, but it's morning and I'll try to finish act 1 today. I won't be discouraged to not finish the game- if something can use mode3, have custom artwork, music, and can remix charlie lee's CTB, like hell I'm giving up.