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Vacant Sky: Contention

Vacant Sky Complete Edition: Act I+ Released!

OH SHIT, an XP game that is actually set in a moden or futuristic setting? My prayers are answered. It's like everyone has a phobia of settings that don't involve castles and peasants. >>

Brb, downloading this.
 
Hey.
Very well done on this project.

The execution was solid, and I believe that the title screen was great too.
Some standout things were the animations. They were absolutely spectacular (most of them) and really show the effort you've put into this project. Other than this, the music really stands out as non repetitive and the sort of stuff that I would go for in a video game. Violins with other instruments make a great recipe! I enjoyed the first dungeon-ish place, as well as the cut scenes. They were just about right and gave away the right amount of information. I must admit that the mask on the floor of one of the parks was something that creeped me out every time I walked pass. The voice acting was, although not fantastically spectacular awesomeafying, was still as near as to perfect it can be in a game like this, and had a good quality to it too, which is something that you don't notice until you've heard bad voice acting.

Although it wasn't all handy dandy. For example, I wandered the town for absolutely ages and ages. Sometimes forgetting what I was meant to be doing. I would include an item like the list of things to do, and also neaten up the transitions between the three maps. To me they just didn't make sense. Also, when I'm meant to check out the house on the way home, I could barely even see it (I hope it was the right one) and whether or not this triggered a switch for me to go home is beyond me, so I would sort that out too. I also noticed a few bugs, meaning that the maps and sprites were not showing up whilst I booted up the game a couple of times, accompanying a black rectangular bar at the bottom of my screen (not whilst on menu or save screen, only map) and a freezing of the game during the bridge scene.

But, apart from the latter points, I will stay tuned to this game, and I give it a well deserved 83%. It was worth the time, and was a pleasure to play.

:)
 
Hey Sailerius, I just downloaded this tonight.  It's the first RMXP game I've downloaded in a long while other than short ones.

I won't say too much until I've played more but I'm pretty impressed.  If this was released last summer it would have got a lot more attention, it seems rm games are getting much less attention this year which is a shame.  That being said, this still should be getting more attention than it is in my opinion.  It's very polished if nothing else.

Of course it's not all good and I'll be getting back to you on that but at the moment it's more gripes or peeves than full-blown flaws.

The opening bit of play was a fantastic game intro, I was pretty disappointed after the actual game started, it seemed very anti-climatic.  I would have been happy playing as those guys though the fact you made a host of skills and battle sheets for them, one would asusme that is the case anyway.

More from me when I have a better overall picture.

TO EVERYONE ELSE... GIVE THIS SOME MORE ATTENTION.
 
Very nice job on this project, Sailerius. Decided to give it a go last night, and it was a fun, well-executed game.

The title screen was animated pretty well, although an option to skip it would be nice. The intro was pretty hooking, good job on that. I liked the battle system and customizable stats. The maps were good, too, better than average certainly.

Now, some things I'd like to comment on. Auria's starting town was a bit difficult to get around. It's a big place, and kind of annoying to walk back and forth doing errands. It's also hard to remember all the things you need to do. A quest log or list of some sort would help.

Also, the voice acting was a nice touch, but it felt a bit out of place listening to it. For example, only a few cutscenes had voices, while others were silent. Sometimes, the text would scroll faster or slower than the voice, and you'd have to wait for it to catch up. These are just minor things, but fixing them would improve the demo a bit.

Oh, and there was a small bug in the final village (Alibaas). After you leave the house, if you reenter before finding Salijara in the cave, the cutscene where you wake up happens again. This can probably be fixed with an easy self-switch.

Anyway, I liked the demo so far. Music was also fantastic, and there was certainly a cinematic feel in each cutscene. Keep it up, hope to see more in future releases.
 
Oh, and there was a small bug in the final village (Alibaas). After you leave the house, if you reenter before finding Salijara in the cave, the cutscene where you wake up happens again. This can probably be fixed with an easy self-switch.
Yeah, I'm aware of that. X_x I have no idea how I and all the testers missed that huge bug.
 
A couple new pieces of fanart since the release of the new demo--

http://fc05.deviantart.com/fs26/f/2008/098/0/0/Spring_rain___Auria_by_LucaMaria.jpg[/img]
http://fc03.deviantart.com/fs29/f/2008/099/a/8/Auria_Edith_for_ProjectBC_by_Luvcnkll.jpg[/img]
http://fc04.deviantart.com/fs27/f/2008/114/9/f/9fb58861fd7b689b87d408d1a706d673.jpg[/img]
 

Taylor

Sponsor

I've just completed the demo, and I'll try and keep this as simple as possible.

I felt disappointed by this demo, the introduction was great - the play as the enemy section was great, good atmosphere and mapping, and good gameplay. However the around town area felt very incomplete and rushed. Mapping was nice, and it's good to see another RPG using de-saturated RTP styles, but the gameplay could've been much better.
If this is meant to be modern however, some custom tiles would be of some use around town. I'm not talking sky scrapers or tarmac... you can do that if you want. I'm talking more along the lines of modern appliances and furnishings, modern street lights, oh and maybe modern clothes for the npcs. (But this is a demo, winging about graphics or scripts might be a bit harsh...)
Here are a few tips for the hometown area:
- Have the items you collect actual items. Even when they have very little use, Quest Items should be a prominent feature of an item list. This is more an asthetic thing I suppose however.
- Have a quest log or something similar. I might've been searching forever trying to find the hero's friend.
- Try and be consistent. The face images sometimes don't appear when they should.

Now the story began to move on... and I had no idea what was going on! First I end up on some beach, then in some area probably part of the Void, then I "wake up", only to then end up in a thoroughly underdeveloped village?
My assumption from the flashes in the "you are in the Void" scene were that you were slipping back into reality - you were drowning after being thrown off a bridge, the flashes were like water rushing past.
But no! I end up on a strip of land and are automatically thrown back to where I was before, thinking I might work out what's going on later, only to be more confused.
What would've worked better? Being washed up on the shore/riverbank to be discovered by that couple.(See last sentence.) No waking up some other weird place or anything.
If you needed that scene that seems to be for choosing a class, then have it managed in the village.

The voice acting was a nice touch, but could really be a bit more common, some scenes felt important enough to have them (talking to Dad, rescuing "Micheal"(sp?), and turning off power) but did not.

To conclude, I expected a lot from this, I still expect a lot thanks to the introduction... it's just not really keeping up at the moment.

Bugs:
- Returning to the inn that you wake up in causes the scene to ocour again.
- An old man wondering around back at the hometown sometimes doesn't animate.
- Part of the letterbox black areas is still visible during the hometown scenes/quests.

Sorry if I'm not descriptive enough. I can't remember anyone's names because the font wouldn't install. Kept saying the font was in use and therefore couldn't be copied. x_o
 
Thank you very much for the critique. :)

Have the items you collect actual items. Even when they have very little use, Quest Items should be a prominent feature of an item list. This is more an asthetic thing I suppose however.
- Have a quest log or something similar. I might've been searching forever trying to find the hero's friend.
That's actually something that I've already implemented into the final version. :) The only place I didn't finish for the demo was the post office, which is where you get your to-do list and a map of the town.

What would've worked better? Being washed up on the shore/riverbank to be discovered by that couple.(See last sentence.) No waking up some other weird place or anything.
If you needed that scene that seems to be for choosing a class, then have it managed in the village.
Everything that 'flashes by' up until that point is absolutely vital to the story.  I realize the demo doesn't give you much closure regarding what happened, but I assure you it'll be adequately explored in the final version.  Also, the build selection scene in the Hall of Legends is another event that later becomes extremely important, story-wise.

The voice acting was a nice touch, but could really be a bit more common, some scenes felt important enough to have them (talking to Dad, rescuing "Micheal"(sp?), and turning off power) but did not.
Good catch--both of those scenes actually are voice acted in the final version, but some casting issues led to them being omitted from the demo.

Returning to the inn that you wake up in causes the scene to ocour again.
Yeah, I recently found out about that.  No idea how testing missed it.

An old man wondering around back at the hometown sometimes doesn't animate.
What do you mean by 'doesn't animate?'

Part of the letterbox black areas is still visible during the hometown scenes/quests.
That's strange.  Some people have reported it still being visible and others said it wasn't there.  I'm going to look into seeing if there's something you can do that causes that.
 

Taylor

Sponsor

With the old man NPC, I mean that he just... slides along the ground without moving his legs. It appears to fix itself when he turns up though. He's walking around the area the woman in the blue-green dress is sitting on a bench in town.
 
With the old man NPC, I mean that he just... slides along the ground without moving his legs. It appears to fix itself when he turns up though. He's walking around the area the woman in the blue-green dress is sitting on a bench in town.
Hmm...that's strange. o_O I don't see it.  I'll try running it on my desktop and see if it happens there.
 

Fayte

Sponsor

This might be artistic flavor, not sure, but why can you see her eye through her hair? It looks strange to me but other then that I think it looks pretty good.
 
Just noticed that. It looks as if the eye was added in at the last minute.
It's starting to creep me out now that you mention it...
 
I recently finished the demo, and wow. It was definately an enjoyable experience and I can't wait for the full version. Story pulled me in within the first minute.

One thing I do like is all the custom edits to the battle system. The doge/guard/counter system is ingenious. And no 'attack' command, although you do have 'strike'. I don't think the basic system is bad, I just think you switching it up is a bonus.

Also, the voice acting was nifty too. And Auria's hair is pretty. *pets pixels*
 

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