36 replies to this topic

[Lotias]

Describe the Game: It's a pretty simple game so far- It only has two (cool looking) levels and two different enemies. I was working on a quest script, but it didn't work out too well- it should be ready by version 3, hopefully. It's a platformer RPG complete with armor types(in engine but not in game yet), levelling (very hard to do until quest script is finished), a simple inventory (more complex inventory on the way!), .ini loading, and AI scripts. (saves are transferrable- some values may be added, if so there will be an up-to-date-save; copy the new values over to your old one)

Screenshots:





Category: Platformer, RPG, puzzle
File Size:About 3.36 MB
GM Version:
Vista Compatible: Yes
Changes Screen Resolution: No
Download Link: /note: you will probably have to unzip the folder/
Download Here

Edited by Lotias, 04 September 2012 - 03:06 AM.

[gamereality]

Very nice! I love the story so far, it's quite intriguing. The graphics have obviously had some work go into them, too, which is always good. Just a few suggestions;

- Have the help accessible from a menu or at least in some way able to be read again.
- Make left click and space advance through dialogue; this is because those who choose to move using WASD instead of the arrow keys will usually find the spacebar awkward to use.
- Melee combat with enemies seems a bit sudden to damage you as well. Normally melee combat rewards players that are able to move quickly and adapt to the enemies, in this case it's just clunky.
- The magic appears to drain energy quickly, but I could still use it past a certain threshold (the energy bar had reached zero yet I could still fire magic bolts) making it easy to just spam.

Other than that, I like the game a lot!

Good job.

[Lotias]

Very nice! I love the story so far, it's quite intriguing. The graphics have obviously had some work go into them, too, which is always good. Just a few suggestions;

- Have the help accessible from a menu or at least in some way able to be read again.
- Make left click and space advance through dialogue; this is because those who choose to move using WASD instead of the arrow keys will usually find the spacebar awkward to use.
- Melee combat with enemies seems a bit sudden to damage you as well. Normally melee combat rewards players that are able to move quickly and adapt to the enemies, in this case it's just clunky.
- The magic appears to drain energy quickly, but I could still use it past a certain threshold (the energy bar had reached zero yet I could still fire magic bolts) making it easy to just spam.

Other than that, I like the game a lot!

Good job.

Help is accessable through pushing F1, but that's not written down yet in the game. I'll try making left click advance through dialog, thanks. That's really odd that you can spam magic, I'll look into that. And the attacking sprite is very short; I'll try making it longer so you can dodge.
Edit: Yeah that magic problem is really confusing; the code definitely checks how much energy you have.

&&global.energy>((10*global.level)*global.spell)-1

And when I play it, when the energy is less than that I can't cast. No idea what your problem would be.

Edited by Lotias, 24 April 2011 - 06:21 PM.

[WeebleZeeb]

lol if the tutorial is that enjoyable, i cant wait to see what else is in store for this game

[Ritokure]

• Story seems solid, but I'll have to complain about laser-guided amnesia cliche.
• Combat is slow and clunky, even by RPG standards. Not much skill involved right now, except hit-and-run with spells. Also, your sword's range somehow manages to be even worse than the enemy's range.
• A few parts of the HUD seems unnecessarily small. Seriously, I can barely read "Energy" without going full-screen, even though there's plenty of empty space to do so.
• The graphics are really nice. The forest looks good and the Wasp Fly is nice... but what the heck is wrong with the Sceron's head?
• You can save any time you want - both with F5-F6 and by pressing S literally anywhere once you get to the final Event.
• No encryption of any kind in the game save or enemy data. I could make myself a Level 99 character with good ol' Notepad.
• I'm not sure about the controls. I got used to it after some time, but typical PC RPG controls would be better - like using the 1-2-3 keys (or F1-F2-F3) for different items.

These are the only complaints I have. Game is really good and has great potential, but just not much to do right now. You really can only do the most basic stuff.
Good luck though.

Edited by Ritokure, 24 April 2011 - 06:54 PM.

[WeebleZeeb]

Whoops, doublepost.

Edited by WeebleZeeb, 24 April 2011 - 07:36 PM.

[Lotias]

• Story seems solid, but I'll have to complain about laser-guided amnesia cliche.
• Combat is slow and clunky, even by RPG standards. Not much skill involved right now, except hit-and-run with spells. Also, your sword's range somehow manages to be even worse than the enemy's range.
• A few parts of the HUD seems unnecessarily small. Seriously, I can barely read "Energy" without going full-screen, even though there's plenty of empty space to do so.
• The graphics are really nice. The forest looks good and the Wasp Fly is nice... but what the heck is wrong with the Sceron's head?
• You can save any time you want - both with F5-F6 and by pressing S literally anywhere once you get to the final Event.
• No encryption of any kind in the game save or enemy data. I could make myself a Level 99 character with good ol' Notepad.
• I'm not sure about the controls. I got used to it after some time, but typical PC RPG controls would be better - like using the 1-2-3 keys (or F1-F2-F3) for different items.

These are the only complaints I have. Game is really good and has great potential, but just not much to do right now. You really can only do the most basic stuff.
Good luck though.

I noticed that the sword's range stunk- I'll have to make the mask bigger.
Encryption isn't that big of a deal yet, but I'll work on it once I start adding quests.
Sceron's head is like that because I used this sprite sheet.. Be a little more specific about /how/ his head is weird and I might be able to improve that.
Gotta have the constantly seen amnesia cliche. >.>
Typical PC RPG controls would be a pain- you'd have to reach from the spacebar to the top of your keyboard every time you wanted to use magic or any of the other buttons, unless you're a WASD user. I might add the 1-2-3 as secondary controls, though. I'll work on improving the HUD text. Also; I'll add some improvements to the AI, as in making it try to avoid the spell by 'jumping'.

Edited by Lotias, 24 April 2011 - 07:47 PM.

[Lotias]

Coming in the next beta:
improved sprites
new enemy AI type
new enemy
quests
more rooms than just a tutorial
hopefully some sound effects
clicking advancing the dialog
Just so you guys know.

[Supertoad25]

Can't you just materiel-grind?
Oh well, guess you could do that in alot of games.
I can't believe I'm saying this about an RPG...but I actually had fun.

Edited by Supertoad25, 28 April 2011 - 02:22 AM.

[Lotias]

I don't get it why would you grind for material? It's only useful for progression through a level.

[Supertoad25]

I don't get it why would you grind for material? It's only useful for progression through a level.

Stages? In an RPG?
Unheard of.

[Lotias]

I don't get it why would you grind for material? It's only useful for progression through a level.

Stages? In an RPG?
Unheard of.

Yeah the quests are basically going to work like stages; finish all the quests in a stage, progress to the next one.

[Lotias]

Next update won't be coming for a while- GM is being stupid and executing codes that aren't there, and I'm waiting for a composer to finish... composing.

[Lotias]

Updated! Smoothed out the first cutscene, improved some sprites, added a new enemy, added bombs, could not add quests at this time.
Unzip the file, to avoid any glitches.

I will try to update all of the screenshots later.

[kburkhart84]

You may already have it in mind, but I think graphics wise(according to screenshots at least) you should try to make the HUD graphics fit with the rest somewhat. The sudden white sticks out, and though you want the HUD to stick out to an extent, the styles clash pretty badly, at least IMHO. Since the level looks more earthy colored(green/brown/red) maybe you should make the HUD somehow in similar colors. Characters can get away from the color gamut somewhat, which is good because the avatar is the most important thing in the game screen graphic wise, but HUD graphics just don't have such a luxury.

[Cocopuffs]

Overall this isn't half bad, it has some minor things that you should be able to pretty easily fix up.

The first and biggest issue is a problem a lot of GM games have, your sword attack doesn't have enough range. It should reach a great deal in front of you, even if its just a dagger I would give it a fair amount more reach.

Second thing, like others have said, the HUD takes up way more space and is way more intrusive than it needs to be. I made a quick mock-up below to try and balance things a little better. You can kind of see where I was going with it. You dont need such big and bright boxes around everything on the hud, generally the more of the game world you see the better. Also keep in mind what immediate information you need quick access too on the HUD, and what information can be reserved for a pause or inventory screen. Like do we really need to constantly see what the players attack and defense is? Most games only give you that information in inventory/character screens because it's not really something that changes often.


And my last smallest complaint was why the energy only recharges as he walks? It just doesnt make much sense to me, and I dont see its use from a gameplay standpoint.

Other than that, this is looking pretty promising. Keep up the good work, hope to see more from you.

[kburkhart84]

See the screenshot above. That is exactly what I meant by removing the bright white. That mock-up fits in with the rest of the game as far as the colors go.

[Lotias]

Overall this isn't half bad, it has some minor things that you should be able to pretty easily fix up.

The first and biggest issue is a problem a lot of GM games have, your sword attack doesn't have enough range. It should reach a great deal in front of you, even if its just a dagger I would give it a fair amount more reach.

Second thing, like others have said, the HUD takes up way more space and is way more intrusive than it needs to be. I made a quick mock-up below to try and balance things a little better. You can kind of see where I was going with it. You dont need such big and bright boxes around everything on the hud, generally the more of the game world you see the better. Also keep in mind what immediate information you need quick access too on the HUD, and what information can be reserved for a pause or inventory screen. Like do we really need to constantly see what the players attack and defense is? Most games only give you that information in inventory/character screens because it's not really something that changes often.


And my last smallest complaint was why the energy only recharges as he walks? It just doesnt make much sense to me, and I dont see its use from a gameplay standpoint.

Other than that, this is looking pretty promising. Keep up the good work, hope to see more from you.

I like the look of your changed HUD- I'll work on changing it as similar as I can to that. Thanks for the example image, makes things a lot easier.

The energy recharges when he walks right now to make beta testing faster for me- I guess instead I should make a hidden key combo that instantly recharges it to max, and have the energy recharge when you rest.

I'll start work on some sort of an inventory screen- It'll be interesting for me.

And, pft, gotta increase the size of the sword's mask again?

[WeebleZeeb]

the new enemy rocks

[Lotias]

Kthx, Zeeb
Updated to version 2.1!
Added:
a pause menu
new HUD look
updated screenshots
resting instead of walking gives energy
damage randomisation
Next:
Fix the message saying when you move you gain energy
Pft, can't believe I forgot that.

Edited by Lotias, 28 May 2011 - 12:25 AM.