[VXA] Menagerie: Remastered!

[coyotecraft]

The time on my last save was around 5hours 30mins. But the last battle was pretty long. Plus I had to retry in a few places so it was probably closer to 7 hours total.

I didn't go out of my way to harvest materials, it probably would have been easier if I had crafted the stat bonuses. I only made a bunch of mushrooms and raised Spookie's magick. The only weapons (except of the end game stuff) that were worth buying were the instant kill ones. I didn't bother using equipment that only raised stats by 1 or 2 points.
Fatty had the highest attack, at one point he critical countered the last boss around 12,000. But usually he did only 2,000. Fyori mostly healed, but her one special attack was useful on monsters that resisted everything. Spooky had the highest magick, that made the reflect magic item really useful. I mostly used him to drain HP. Gerald was pretty useless even with the best sword he was only doing around 400 damage, so I used him as a buffer and defended or distributed mp potions around.

It seemed like there were a lot of pointless stuff. You didn't get exp from battles, so removing that screen would have made things move quicker. You get all the ship parts handed to you, so it was confusing that those parts appeared in the fusion manual. I almost wasted material on them. Would building a second ship do anything?

 

[BizarreMonkey]

The only weapons (except of the end game stuff) that were worth buying were the instant kill ones. I didn't bother using equipment that only raised stats by 1 or 2 points.

Stats are increased by percentages, not by flat amounts, so it won't show immediately, I usually have Gerald as the high dpser, with his top tier weapon and 2 'Loion's Swordsmanship' he can use his ultimate Ascension ability and reg attack 3 times in a row for 8-12 k

Fatty had the highest attack, at one point he critical countered the last boss around 12,000. But usually he did only 2,000.

That's the way the battle systme handles countered damage calculation, not a whole lot i can do about it.

Fyori mostly healed, but her one special attack was useful on monsters that resisted everything.

Any attacks with the blue non-specifc blast icon are non-elemental, and therefore, no sort of enemies can resist them, Gerald's Revelation ability and several others have a couple abilities, Spooky is the exception.

Spooky had the highest magick, that made the reflect magic item really useful. I mostly used him to drain HP.

I usually make a 'Furen's Vigor' so he crits nearly all the time.

Gerald was pretty useless even with the best sword he was only doing around 400 damage, so I used him as a buffer and defended or distributed mp potions around.

Haha, wow, did you try equipping him with a Loion's swordsmanship, just one can easily double his output, with an ability that makes hm untouchable and allows him to attack three times per one, he can be the highest dps easy.

It's incredible how differently we built our characters, I can't say I don't like the diversity and the emphasis on player choice, which brings us to the next line of inquiry.

It seemed like there were a lot of pointless stuff. You didn't get exp from battles, so removing that screen would have made things move quicker.

The point of wandering monsters is for loot, it's ideal to know what your getting so you can hunt the right sort of mobs. You can go entirely without fighting optional wandering ncounters if you desire, this is very much player choice.

You get all the ship parts handed to you, so it was confusing that those parts appeared in the fusion manual. I almost wasted material on them. Would building a second ship do anything?

No, I just left it in so people could if they wanted to for some reason.

Thanks a bunch for the feedback, while your experience may not have been optimal for the final boss, you still beat it, and in an entirely different way to what I did, this is pleasing to me because it means a lot of choices are in the players hands. Which is what I wanted.

Cheers. ^.^

 

[BizarreMonkey]

If anyone is interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8gHZKC9BT4

 

[Erichermit]

That you have been influenced by homestuck in clear in this one! =P

But it's not a bad thing. It looks very unique in general. I've personally never seen an RMXP project with a lot of actual cutscenes in it. From the trailer it looks like theres a lot of variation in gameplay as well. I can't download and play right now as I'm on vacation, but I will be doing so when I got home, I'll give my critique after I finish.

Obviously, the graphics could use some improvements, but mostly I'm glad that you didn't let that stop you from doing the most important part: making and releasing the damn thing. Any graphical complaints anyone could have are assuredly minor when considered that this is an (apparently pretty long) full game with innovation not too common in to the RM community. (At least, innovation not too common with released game. I see plenty of vaporware with it.)

One final note is that I was reading your comments and noticed that monsters dont give EXP. I love this, and is something I've been thinking was a great idea for a little while now.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

That you have been influenced by homestuck in clear in this one! =P

Aw dang, it's still obvious?

Well, hopefully not as much so as it was in beta!

But it's not a bad thing. It looks very unique in general. I've personally never seen an RMXP project with a lot of actual cutscenes in it.

Aww, thanks! Also, in case that wasn't a typo, it's made in VX Ace, not RMXP.

Though your point still stands, I don't think I've seen anyone use picture commands or make cutscenes to the graphic extent I do. I have played a lot of Demos this year, too! Only Trial (by Trial-jin) came close.

From the trailer it looks like theres a lot of variation in gameplay as well.

How perceptive of you! Yes, there's ye olde sideview battles among the various evented ABS battles, some where you have to merely survive, where others you have to fight back.

I can't download and play right now as I'm on vacation, but I will be doing so when I got home, I'll give my critique after I finish.

All good, mate. I anticipate your analysis!

Obviously, the graphics could use some improvements, but mostly I'm glad that you didn't let that stop you from doing the most important part: making and releasing the damn thing.

I think had I tried to do all out graphics along with all of the gameplay elements and cutscenes this project may have driven me literally insane. I decided to focus on getting the gameplay to a degree where it's fun, the graphics have been upgraded multiple times throughout the projects long development cycle, too.

Any graphical complaints anyone could have are assuredly minor when considered that this is an (apparently pretty long) full game with innovation not too common in to the RM community. (At least, innovation not too common with released game. I see plenty of vaporware with it.)

This game has come close several times to being vaporware, but I persisted and with my team of Crazy Chimpanzee Cooks we got it done in just the nick of time! It would have easily been extended to 12/12/2014 had I decided to go graphical glory with it.

One final note is that I was reading your comments and noticed that monsters dont give EXP. I love this, and is something I've been thinking was a great idea for a little while now.

Only bosses give EXP and solo encounters in each characters beginning introduction, this is mainly to keep it balanced, since leveling once can mean getting another 100 HP in this game. The experience is rigged, and I'm okay with wandering monsters not giving EXP because you can choose to never fight one and also they drop something more important, decent quantities of resources for Fusion.

Thanks so much for the feedback!

 

[BizarreMonkey]

LIVE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS STREAM IN AN HOUR AND A HALF (5 PM PST), DON'T MISS IT!

 

[Ellie]

Finally got around to downloading this. Looking good so far. I'll probably write up a proper review or something when I have time, but all this animation is what I was talking about in (whatever thread I was talking about animation in). This is a game rather than a tweaking of RPG Maker variables.

 

[Erichermit]

Alright, so as promised, I have played it a bit.

The combat system is nice! I think it's a more interesting side-view battle system than most. As of now it seems entirely based around the proper use of boons, which to me tends to make a much more strategic system than "use your best move!!"

The fusion system is nice too. I'm having to struggle with my desire to grab the materials off of EVERYTHING vs realize there is no way I need that much wood.

The cutscenes are also just as cool as I thought.

The supreme homestuck influences. I'm having a hard time deciding whether they're endearing or detrimental. I think that the crazy alien with the sword is just too obviously "Jack Noir" for my tastes, even down to "Cyan Reaches" and such, but everything else seems fine.

In general, I'm loving most of the humor all over the place.

I've just finished blowing up the power generator on the big ship and have logged off for the day, but I'll be sure to go back and finish it soon. Thanks for the game!

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Holy Hell. I was asked recently on a Live Q&A where I got the majority of the feedback, and I said here since this has been the place most willing to give it all a go.

Now I have two posts more!

Alright, so as promised, I have played it a bit.

The combat system is nice! I think it's a more interesting side-view battle system than most. As of now it seems entirely based around the proper use of boons, which to me tends to make a much more strategic system than "use your best move!!"

A lot of the influence for strategy in this game was inspired from Epic Battle Fantasy 3 and 4, which also are strategic a fair bit by way of states. I'm glad you liked the sideview battles! I did try my best to polish it to a mirror shine but I still expected they might feel weak.

The fusion system is nice too. I'm having to struggle with my desire to grab the materials off of EVERYTHING vs realize there is no way I need that much wood.

Realistically, you could get every single thing even if it would serve no purpose in the end. Hypothetically you might run out of time but that's never stopped anyone.

Just wait until you unlock space exploration. :B

The cutscenes are also just as cool as I thought.

I'm glad they are up to par, though in the future I'm going to avoid marketing games off of cut-scenes.

The supreme homestuck influences. I'm having a hard time deciding whether they're endearing or detrimental.

It's hard to say with fidelity if avoiding it entirely was possible, I have cut a lot down but there are yes, still glaring influences throughout and I am not proud of them.

I think that the crazy alien with the sword is just too obviously "Jack Noir" for my tastes, even down to "Cyan Reaches" and such, but everything else seems fine.

Originally he was jack noir down to the marrow in personality, bad temperament, silent endless killing, but I decided to change his personality so he would be more of a psychopathic bipolar cat in the hat. Vaudevillain at times and villainous at others. Given the original design for him I would have needed to do an entire re-haul of the plot to avoid the similarities entirely, I figured I may as well use this game to drain the homestuck phlegm out of my system so I can start fresh for the next thing I make.

In general, I'm loving most of the humor all over the place.

I'm glad it appealed to you, I tried my best to make it legible for most audiences so as to not detach those who may not get an inside joke of a certain fandom or product. The defining line is when you can make an in-joke and have people without the resources or culture to get it, still find amusement in it somewhere. Whether I have done this successfully, I am not sure. For the most part the characters interaction with each other and the odd wording sometimes used should get a giggle out of most.

I'll be honest, I'm going in-depth about this because I was worried I might not nail the humor in this game which is something I sold well on (hypothetically) in my first release, so i was and still sort of am worried that the humor isn't as good as I want it to be. I've had people tell me the humor is good though, Homestuck fans and not. Maybe I'm just over-analyzing the matter.

I've just finished blowing up the power generator on the big ship and have logged off for the day, but I'll be sure to go back and finish it soon. Thanks for the game!

You're welcome, and for the most part you've passed the blatant Homestuck influence.

Finally got around to downloading this. Looking good so far. I'll probably write up a proper review or something when I have time, but all this animation is what I was talking about in (whatever thread I was talking about animation in). This is a game rather than a tweaking of RPG Maker variables.

Thanks! I've actually had people think I've done this with something like game maker since there are very few games that stretch the engine this far. So while I still have my doubts about the game, I'm still really proud of it and how it's been received!

If anyone was curious about the Q&A I mentioned a little while ago, we had some issues with TwitchTV and the majority of it was lost, here's a video with what remains.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muEj700CkUE

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Coming soon...

 

[blamethepoet]

the game has a nice style

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Well thank you, still a lot of work to be done, and the date I was hoping to release it may have to be postponed, or the release will just have to be expanded on and finished up on 01/02/2015.

For what it's worth, only optional content remains, In fact even of that I'm nearly up to Tier 7, have only one boss left of Tier 6 and tier 5 is done. Then its 8 bosses of Tier 7, (really, it's 4 with 4 bosses in one battle and two in another), then 16 bosses of Tier 8. then only the four bosses of Tier Nine and Zardari's hardmode remains. I might do up to just into Tier 8 then let players return to fight Zardari, due to the way that will be a good cut off point I can add the remaining Corporation XVI bosses and all of Tier 9 as well as Zardari's hardmode in with a large (totally free as always) patch.

To keep you fellas posted, here's some screens from what I've been working on...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pIhlXYNcz0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXrbcQPgUaI

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Release is happen! Check first Post.

Also, a let's play by my friend Icefire82g.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhxVXekFO54

Finally, the best advice I can give.

You see vassaly, when tooltips is of gones,
and fire automatik vorkload
lag is of remove, everywhere!

 

[BizarreMonkey]

With 51 songs and five bonus tracks at the price of a single dollar rather than the several more dollars its worth, this is an ideal way of showing your support, all the money will go to the composer for the game, not me! So if you wanted to praise MoneyMenace for his brilliant work this is one such way to do it.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

A huge patch is being worked on for Menagerie: Remastered. The changelog following highlights some of the incredible new features in this build.

Menagerie: Into the Mamix Edition
-After many requests, the game now supports speed-runs.
-The surreal planar vortex known to some as The Mamix is beginning to spawn rifts around the Universe, entering these rifts could have unspoken consequences, from save deletion to an optional hell level that will give you a Platinum trophy for completing.
-The Equation Unsolved and the "Time Ever After" optional content tiers have been scrapped in favour of Mixtape Monsoon and World that never was.
-Corporation XVI are now their true selves, and go by organization XIII. Member XIV was fired, again. Member XV left, and Member XVI is now a secret boss known only as Lord Spanish.
-Zardari's final boss fight should now drag on for an extended period of time, likely two and a half hours for phase one.
-The optional boss Esperia, now gives you an optional choice to pay 3 dollars for some pornographic DLC, starring herself and a character of the players choice going on adventures of sexual conquest.
-In the wake of the Mamix, several other optional bosses have appeared. Sepoohroth, DJ Wyldstyle, Fifty Sluts, Mangaka Calibron, Voice of Kek and Manrkrik's wife among them.
-Sleeping Dogs make a cameo appearance for no adequately explored reason.
-Jhonen Vasquez has replaced all the art with his own contributions.
-Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw now does the narration.
-Morgan Freeman is the voice of Fatty Mclarge.
-Gilbert Gottfried now voices Zardari.
-Spooky is now voiced by Jon Demaggio
-Fyori is voiced by Lizzy McGuire.
-Finally, Gerald is no longer a playable character. He has been replaced by none other than Ben Stiller himself.
-Whenever the player gets a game over, Gilbert Gottfried does a huge spiel about how they are bad at the game.
-You can now post your record boss times to Facebook.
-All of Corporation XVI (or Organization XIII) will be voiced by Tom Cruise.
-A lot of items have been added to the virtual shop.
-To celebrate Menagerie being greenlit, Menagerie: Remastered will be going up on greenlight about the time of this patch release.
-The Fusion system has been replaced with a real money shop where you can pay real money to get better gear.
-Menagerie: Remastered will become an eSport in time for PAXAUS this year.
-Fatty no longer takes damage.
-Spooky has had his base HP reduced to 1.
-Fyori can now use trilogy or a variation called 'OH FUCK THIS' that is like trilogy but shoots 100 times or until all enemies on screen are dead.
-The Frostlord Maw, can no longer be summoned.
-Several new confusing states have been added!
-The games genuinely funny humor has been replaced with yo mum jokes.
-The end boss is no longer Zardari, shortly after his destruction, Tony Abbott and Barack Obama come in for the assist.
-Zardari has been renamed to George Bush. (Their kill count is similar!)
-Everything is now weak to fire.
-Everything is immune to shadow.
-Magic attacks now give the target lots of imaginative ideas.
-Wet Blanket now summons a blankie that is sodding wet.
-The Brick, sick of people standing in his sunlight, has opted to move two tiles north.
-The Necropolis has sunlight, now.
-Harvesting all the resources in an area now applies an eerie cosmetic effect and asks if you like hurting people.
-Stealing Mr. Goo's stash and then killing him for trying to stop you now forces Fyori upon realization of what a horrible monster she is to commit suicide.
-There is a secret level that can be entered by using fusion to combine Zeirt's Leg and the Codex: "Crafting for the Exceptionally Haughty".
-The PORT4LS now spawn in excess around Nadine and other planets as the game progresses, if the player doesn't clear Nadine by 3 hours and 14 minutes into the game the monumental Pi Day event begins, this event is what some may call a game changer, and will have you rush to build the spacecraft to escape their universe, in order to preserve ours.
-A new 4 minutes 10 seconds long cinematic will play when reaching outer space, showing all the different worlds you have access to, and will be synced to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MdltybiL00
-Players can now donate 420 Cowbells to the Church of Cannabis on Planet Indiana.
-Fyori's dress is now white and gold.
-The first four Goo battles have been replaced by Llamas.
-Johnny0798 is now an optional boss who when defeated goes and plays The Best Birthday Game Ever.
-A new NPC known as Princess Amy will now sell issue #12 of Advanced RPGmaker magazine which we blatantly star in.
-Every step you take is added as a profile view on Desura.
-Each time you save the game I win an entirely unrelated but still awesome award.
-Gilbert Gottfried also voices several side characters.
-Morgan Freeman will Narrate the story instead of Yahtzee if you visit the CCC offices and talk to Vitruvius before creating a save file.
-The ending cinematic theme has been replaced with Setting Sail, coming home~.
-The intro cinematic now has several obscene figments from Boku No Pico for no adequately explained reason.
-Tumblo is a new in-game faction, who are trying to take back their planet "Sheck Privrige" from the 4th Dimensional Phantoms.
-Chucklefish also cameo in the game as a group of bandits who take resources made anywhere in their domain and claim the rights to said resources. Trying to fight against this can result in being banished from the Chucklefish dorms, Tiy needlessly insulting you on Planet Redstar in the time they aren't spending eating Galvana cakes and not working on Binding stars.

 

[rey meustrus]

A little late for April Fool's?

 

[BizarreMonkey]

A little yeah, like so I'm a little late to respond.

But yes, that was a joke.

Like I had some radical ideas for April fools and these Patch Notes were prepared in advance but...

Come the actual day and beyond I felt under the weather and didn't do much at all.

I knew I'd have no hope of outdoing 3/14 anyway.

I'm hoping to make a grand push for Dev and all starting may, which is when some key things happen.
- Most of my employee's get done with finals and break commences.
- By then it's likely I'll have confirmed my own Academic deadline, and can work to do something before it's closure.
- A month is actually a lot of time for dev when I'm into it, procrastination is the only reason things take time at all.
- Depending on my Academic Entry and the deadlines, I may or may not be entering the IGMC which is happening again, assumed to start and end in June. (Going by last years)

To compensate for the lack of nothing in lieu of a joke, here is quite a something.
Some really awesome changes are coming, I'll list probably the biggest first.

State Rebate:
There is certainly one thing I've noticed when other people have played this game, and that is that states are very hard to cipher sometimes, and some are way too powerful to be used by players, and are cheap feeling when used by bosses, so states are undergoing a large, but save friendly revamp!

• Each state now has a short name, followed with a brief explanation of what it does (in brackets).
• Several states which force loss of control have been removed, such as villain, berserk and confusion, stun remains as it's very handy against some bosses, such as the Dislocated Legends. The reason for this is that loss of control isn't fun, and there are less artificial ways to make bosses challenging.
• New awesome states are being added, such as Armor Break, Magic Break, and Elemental damage over time effects.
• The abilities Purify and Optimism are being rolled into Purify, the same goes for Erasure and Pessimism.
• Fatty will no longer gain a health benefit when morphing into bear form, in exchange he cannot be stunned or lose control in any form sans exceptions such as Temptress' Bite.
• Elemental attacks will now inflict a corresponding damage over time effect. It's only 1% bu on some bosses this is priceless.

Here's the second huge change.
Zardari's Final straw, how long does this shit even have to be also macguffins plzno
I got some very legitimate advice about the final battle with Zardari, so I'm going to be correcting a lot that I went wrong with.

• Zardari will still have 12 Million HP.
• He will now cast bigger spells based on the HP that remains. 80% Wide Slash, 60% Galactic Strike, 40% Titan Strike, 20% The Cyan Reaches.
• The Demigods will no longer interfere, it's all up to the player now.
• Alike all bosses, Zardari isn't immune to elemental damage over time effects.
• A new music track will play throughout the entire fight, rather than having it switch up.
• Zardari will still use power surge, but dependant on the health that remains rather than by turn. he'll reach 4 stacks by 10%, and each 20% prior he'll apply a single stack. (90%, 70% 50%, and so on.)
• Zardari has lots of nasty new tricks to keep you on your toes, such as an attack which inflicts curse. Giving himself extra turns (which can be dispelled), buffing himself to reflect magic, or entirely avoid melee attacks, etc.)
• Throughout the fight, the characters and Zardari will interact, by 40% health Zardari starts showing he's impressed.
• By 5%, Zardari goes berserk, with 8 stacks of power surge, it's now vital to kill him as fast as possible.
• Some mechanics are still being worked out.

Other Changes

• Fatty's Pessimism ability will be replaced with an ability that inflicts curse on an opponent.
• Fatty's Optimism will be replaced with an ability that restores 25% EP to the party at the cost of some of his health.
• Abilities will now clarify their modifier.
• Turtle is now called Defense
• Shield is now called Spirit
• Reflex changed to Agility.
• All instances of MP will be changed to EP.
• The Insanity debuff from using gatekeeper will now be dispelled on death and after battle.

That's about all for now, I'll try my best to keep you fellas posted on big changes!

That said, it's hard to remember everywhere I have this posted, if you want a more stable and reliable update feed, following me on twitter might be the best method.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Patch 1.1 up and running, could have done it loads earlier but I've been focusing on other projects, pretty much all of the changes mentioned in the above post have been implemented. Finally-- I also updated some of the graphics that are out of date post Intelligence's grand finale release. Saves will be compatible.