Whisper of a Rose

[Twirly]

DAMN! This certainly is a surprise, i never thought it would be released this quick :D
Well I am downloading the 1h demo right now, and I'll post some feedback later
From what I read and saw, I must say that this could be an RPG I really want to play.
(and that says a lot because I hate 99% of all RPGs)

PS:
Diamond looks cute :3

 

[Kodakami]

Thank you for your interest in Whisper. If you plan to have an extended conversation regarding WoaR, then please do this on the RosePortal Games forum.

 

[Fallen]

It's nice to see you released the game!, Good Luck with it!
I played it and liked it a lot. Almost cried when

Spoiler

Mom hits her daughter

.

 

[Numb]

It's nice to see you released the game!, Good Luck with it!
I played it and liked it a lot. Almost cried when

Spoiler

Mom hits her daughter

.

Me too!
That was really depressing D:

 

[Kelevra]

I downloaded this and played about 20min of it before I got annoyed with it. Don't get me wrong great graphics, but after playing 20min and being totally lost, with no clue where to go except by directions of north, south, east, etc I gave up. Plus you have some controls that require a mouse (or a mouse with a center button); even though I had it I don't care for this game simply because of the controls. I would not buy this game unless you fixed it.

 

[MontBlanc]

ALICE IN WONDERLAND!

 

[Twin Matrix]

@Kelevra: Unless I fixed what? :O The only place a mouse is totally required in the game is for Crafting, and that's hardly something bad. Not knowing where to go is something I can not fix. It'd be awfully weird if the main character kept saying 'Yea, our house is the 2nd from the left, two streets and a few tiles down,' or 'The street merchant has brown hair, stands in front of some boxes and is about 20 tiles to the right of the left of one street down!', if you know what I mean. :P

@MontBlanc: OMG. xD

 

[sparrow]

I like all kinds of RPG. Old school.
I have a question. I'm in Butterfly caves and can't get out. I think I've done everything, including getting the crystal. Now I'm in the area with puzzle stones. I removed the stones, get all out of the area and underground passings, and when I was done and ready to leave the cave, the puzzle is reset and I can't move any stone for me to get out.

Pls, PM me (if you don't like spoilers on forum) if you know if it's a bug or am I missing something.

 

[Kain Nobel]

You packaged some of the RTP crap into your download? If you could, you need to make two different downloads (one with and one without RTP) because I'm a cheap ass with my 300GB HD XD

Another irritating thing is that I have to manually create the Game's folder when I install it, all the stuff is strewn throughout my "C:\Users\Kain Nobel\Documents\[-RMXP Projects-]\[-Outside Games-]\" directory, which I have 50 games in... grrr. I thought when it "installed" it'd automatically make a new sub-directory for the game instead of just zipping in the specified directory.

Another gripe is the "Hour to play for free" thing. I mean, I understand the time limit is because its commercial, which I respect, but I'd rather it be "Play the free version until [achievement] has been reached" rather than "You have an hour, good luck". I've only played 20 minutes, and an idiot like me spent most of the time looking for the merchant to get on my way.

The time limit means that I'm not going to even bother exploring any extra hallways or streets or ANYTHING other than doing what is needed to advance. I'd rather the game end once, like I said, something in particular has been accomplished (reaching your house, maybe stealing the iDream and traveling to 'wonderland', something...)


Okay, now that the gripes and complaints are out of the way, I'm going to give you a quick review of everything I like so far.

So far, the school and the museum are alright looking, I'm glad you did some custom tilework in these areas. However, what really amazed me is the city, it reminded me of that game Outlaw City (and Outlaw City - Dark Past) which was created by another user on this forum. The thing that made your city better than their's though is obviously the quality of the tilework, even with the RTP grass. Even cooler was the fact that you actually had cars driving down the roads and could take the bus, that is bad ass. Also, when I crossed the road, cars would honk at me and stuff which added for another little neat effect.

Okay, that about ends everything I like so far... I'm mad, after I stole the iDream and kept getting caught by one of those stupid police guards in the museum, it asked me if I wanted to skip the puzzle and I clicked Yes. Afterwards, I was just stuck sitting and waiting at a black screen. I could open the menu, so obviously something is going on but it was just a black screen, this angers me.

For some stupid reason, I also quick saved at that point so my playthrough was kind of a waste already I have to start from the beginning again. I get an error anytime I load that file saying Stack Level too Deep for 'Skill Tree System' or w/e at line 1815.

Okay, that ends my review I've got 16 minutes left I'm not even going to waste my time on it now. I don't know if I'd bother buying this yet, I mean so far its pretty cool but the only real cool thing about it was the custom graphics (and the city with the cars), everything else was... eh, whatever.

Frustrating, simply because of the time limit, I almost want a refund on my time now XD I don't want to sound harsh but there was nothing extraordinary to enjoy in that small ammount of time, nothing enough to make me buy it. On the other hand, I still want to play (to some designated point) because overall that trial sucked XD

Said and done, change your trial, time limits suck, reaching a certain point would be better.

Good luck on your project! If you *cough* change your trial *cough* then you'll have a second chance to get my purchase :wink:

 

[thios]

Nice work!! Finally, some nice peace of art. Downing!! I will play you're game this weekend..

 

[Twin Matrix]

@Kain: Hurrrr @ the installation part. o_o For me it installs it in a Whisper of a Rose directory in Program Files. I'm not sure what causes it to install all files without creating a sub-directory for the game.

Orz @ the black screen bug. :[ I guess no one skipped the puzzle when they tested/played it. *fixes* Thanks! [edit] Euh, it works for me. o.o;

'n I'm not sure what extroadinary things you expect to happen in the first 45 minutes. x] The stack error thing is weird. Can you please e-mail it to admin@roseportalgames.com? If you still have it.

Will read the rest in a bit.

 

[Ynlraey]

Another gripe is the "Hour to play for free" thing. I mean, I understand the time limit is because its commercial, which I respect, but I'd rather it be "Play the free version until [achievement] has been reached" rather than "You have an hour, good luck". I've only played 20 minutes, and an idiot like me spent most of the time looking for the merchant to get on my way.

To be honest I agree with this. I might not get the feeling or "eagerness" on the first hour so an achievement thing might be better.

 

[WadjetEye]

Hey hey. First post on this forum!

The one hour trial is a very standard thing, and usually works very well in convincing folks to buy a game. Unfortunately, RPGs tend to have a very slow buildup and the first hour is usually the most boring part of the game!

Here's a question though. Were you getting interested enough in the game before you hit the bug? Is it the bug the cause of your frustration, or the one hour trial? If you never hit the bug, do you think the one hour trial would have bothered you at all?

-Dave

 

[ultimaodin]

Hey twin, sorry about the long time no post, major issues have gone down in my life I'm afraid.
I wanted you to know I am still working on the two maps.
Map 1 is done and complete and I'm part way through map 2.
I think I've gotten the hang of the tileset now.

@Kain Nobel- The one hour thing isn't irritating to me as it worked perfectly fine for advertising Dragon Quest 7 and many others.

I personally haven't had the chance to play this version of the game but hopefully I will get to download soon.

@Twin- If you can't send patches that allow the user to use hold serial numbers maybe a receipt number is in need that you can cross check so that people can send you and email with their receipt number so they can obtain a new patch and serial number etc...

 

[gerrtunk]

The game is too slow, and if you want people to pay for it, at least make a demo in a better place of the game...

When i readed your description, i thinked that the game will start when Melrose steal the Idream, but no, we have to see his backstory in the begining. Well, at least you can make more action, reduce the filler, make the tutorials totally skippable, etc...

Its not the best idea in a GAME to have the player wandering around with nothing more than boring exploration, a mindless/tutorial combat or a annoying infiltration minigame. You can put all of this, but with true gameplay. ¿Where is the fun in this game?

Also there are games with a low paced intros, examples: FFIX, Grandia, etc... but your history and narrative its no comparable to they. I think the theme is very good, this is the reason i download the game (my actual project have the same), but i think its all to previsible, simple and irreal. The topic of the cute girl excluded with no reason, hurts me. The parents scene make me laugh... i think its too generic and exagerated.

Well... this is my opinion, totally constructive, the art and the scenesare good but i think its not very fun, at least this part of the game.

 

[Kain Nobel]

Sorry, I didn't mean to drop you a wall-o-text, I was just peeved and pulling my hair out. Plus, the hour-to-play thing drives me nuts because it doesn't give you hardly any room to explore, I just tried to breeze through the minimum of what needs to be done to see how far I could get... and it wasn't very far at all, and alot of the time was wasted on not knowing where the heck to go XD

Here's the problem right now...

Spoiler

After the part in the game where the main girl gets into a conflict with those two girls in the school, and breaks her model project in the hallway, she runs to the museum. While in the museum she clocks the police dude in the head with a crowbar, then runs of with the whatever thing, I forget what it is...

(I think the thing I'm talking about is supposed to be what takes her to the alter world or 'dream' world or w/e)

Anyways, somehow the police are alerted and she has to sneak past them without getting caught. After getting caught so many times, a prompt comes up and says something along the lines of...

"Would you like to skip this part? You'll lose a reward."

Wether on accident or on purpose, I promted to skip it... then I was stuck on a black screen. I could still open the menu and stuff, which for some idiot reason I QuickSaved there. But after loading the file and whatnot, all that is happening is you're stuck on a black screen...

Semi related or unrelated to that, the Stack Level Too Deep error...

Spoiler

When I F12, the game resets fine and I'm back at the Title screen. When I clicked Continue and loaded my file after the reset, it gave me the SLTD error at line 1815 for the "Skill Tree System".

Anyways, I'd love to play it again but I think I only have 3 minutes left, so theres hardly any point anymore to play this. Shame because I was hoping to at least get a little farther.

 

[arev]

Thanks, Kain Nobel. Your information about stack error was the first usefull (particularly that the error occurs after reseting the game with F12). The error is fixed now. You'll just have to wait for AJ to include it in the next build.

 

[DojoDesigns]

As far as atmosphere of the game, I don't necessarily think that this will be one that I'll play for too long... However, I DEFINITELY have to commend the artist. I see a LOT of non-RTP graphics, and I think they blend nicely.

 

[zchin]

I think this game deserves an awesome thumbs up!
The atmosphere of the game is scaring me though. :grin:

 

[Twin Matrix]

Hi there! ^_^

I'm sorry for my recent absence of updates here.

I'd like to say that we're working on 1.06, which should be the final update. I've contacted Amanda from Aveyond and she sent a group game devs my way to play the game and check out every extremely tiny bug. I must say that I am embarrassed at the amount of little bugs that I missed. @_@

Meanwhile, I'm also updating and changing some cutscenes. For example, there's now a boss battle that takes place

Spoiler

on the top of a small tower.

The room there is very small, so it's quite a unique battle with all the enemies and players crammed together.

Furthermore, the scripter of Animated Battlers (which WoaR uses) has been able to fix the way enemies' and characters' animations freeze temporarily when attacked! :D So now battles look very smooth.

Another big update is that weapons are no longer 'Attack Orbs' but are now actual weapons (Broadsword, Longbow, etc.) with multiple weapons available at each stage of the game with different special effects. You can now also collect Ancient Weapons with references to the real world, such as Caesar's Crocea Mors and Arthur's Excalibur.

As far as atmosphere of the game, I don't necessarily think that this will be one that I'll play for too long... However, I DEFINITELY have to commend the artist. I see a LOT of non-RTP graphics, and I think they blend nicely.

Could you please elaborate? ^^ Is the game too dark? And thank you for the compliment! (I'm the artist xD).

I think this game deserves an awesome thumbs up!
The atmosphere of the game is scaring me though. :grin:

Thank you! ^^ The first few hours of the game are indeed scary. Nightmares, freaky clowns, scary marionettes, etc. But the atmosphere actually changes quite a bit. After the first few hours, it becomes very bright (love themes, etc.), then very weird (wacky halloween areas, etc.), then very claustrophobic (dense jungles, narrow temple hallways, etc.), etc.