17 replies to this topic

[Liorana]

Hello I've been working on this game for a few months and I'm looking for more feed back. I posted about it back in 2011 but this version is way more advanced and I also gather good constructive feedback last time so now I'm doing it again.

The game is an oldschool looking sidescroller with a combo system and special skills that can be used with 2 different control setup(you chose which you prefer). I tried to put the difficulty at a nice level so let me know if it's well balanced.

The game will work on vista and 7
the window is re-sizable in the in-game setting and you can use F4 for fullscreen.

Game play info
you can fully customize your control on keyboard and/or joystick
Buttons are:
All 4 direction
Attack button
jump button
Special attack button(to perform some special attack when requirements are met)
pause button(to enter the pause menu which contain lots of info)

you can double tap backward while attacking to backdash
you have infinite lives

I don't want to explain everything here because I want to make sure everything is well explained in game. So tell me if things aren't clear enough.

Things I'm aware or you should be aware before playing this demo
you can save in the pause menu at any time(you start back on the worldmap when you load your game)
The text in the game is still undergoing spell check so there is some typo at some parts.
Most portraits are drawn except for 2.
1 Character hasn't been drawn yet and use the sprite of another character with inverted color.
1 monster hasn't been made yet so when you go back to the forest it looks at little empty.
the game title screen intro isn't completed yet so if you let it go you will see a screen that says "long ago" and you won't be able to get out of it without exiting the game.
game is fairly long (expect at least 4-5 hours of game play) since this is a nearly completed project but not quite.

patch note
============
check later if I upload more

Download link (7mb): http://www.mediafire...93w0qefylwbq363

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_q-89EIXd0





The game might lag on really old computer because the game hasn't been optimized yet and has most of the stuff loaded in the ram right away. but shouldn't be a problem if you have at least 512 ram.

some credits:
whole game story/design/sprite/programming is made by me
music are composed by themusicguy and starpath
portrait are made by Beam7 network

Edited by Liorana, 18 May 2012 - 09:40 PM.

[Liorana]

No reply at all in 2 days?
Is something wrong?

[JAk HAk]

I like it. It starts out pretty button-mashy, but that started to change after visiting the first town. I'm not sure whether the first boss is actually able to be defeated if you let him start attacking, but I like how you could do the preemptive strike.

The artwork is fantastic. It's good art in general, feels genuinely retro, and does a good job of representing the game world.

After playing for about half an hour and then exiting, it informed me I hadn't saved. Was that in the pause menu? If so, that'd explain how I missed it.

[Liorana]

I like it. It starts out pretty button-mashy, but that started to change after visiting the first town. I'm not sure whether the first boss is actually able to be defeated if you let him start attacking, but I like how you could do the preemptive strike.

The artwork is fantastic. It's good art in general, feels genuinely retro, and does a good job of representing the game world.

After playing for about half an hour and then exiting, it informed me I hadn't saved. Was that in the pause menu? If so, that'd explain how I missed it.

Yes it was in the pause menu.
Now that you mention it. I don't know why I didn't put that information along with the quit message. So I guess I'll add that.

Thanks for the comment and grats for finding about the preemptive strike. Almost nobody even noticed it.

Edited by Liorana, 20 April 2012 - 06:48 AM.

[Liorana]

I'm really looking for feed back on this. 8 people downloaded it and only 1 person replied and its been nearly a week.
I don't even know if I should see this as a bad or good thing.

Edited by Liorana, 22 April 2012 - 04:48 PM.

[Skilledthis]

Saving this spot to post. Will download in a few minutes.

[Liorana]

Saving this spot to post. Will download in a few minutes.

seems to have not happen.

Still looking for comments on how the game is so i can try to make it better if its bad.

[max_r_61270]

I can't play it because the game only works on PC, but the graphics look OK. Not great, but OK. One thing that always really makes graphics look much better (to me) is adding shadows from objects and walls in the front projecting onto walls and stuff in the back. Try that!

[Kristallify]

I really liked it!

But pardon me, I have to say something...

!@#$% BATS!

They were a real nuisance, and I was ballsy enough to begin on advanced mode. Sadly, I only got as far as the first boss before he defeated me. I MUST TRAIN TO BECOME QUICKER! I'll be watching this topic and will be looking to forward to future versions!

Edit: I didn't notice it was last Beta, so I guess I'll be looking forward to the official release!

Edited by Kristallify, 16 May 2012 - 03:38 AM.

[ZeplashStudios]

I played a bit, saved and when I loaded, it started all over again.... , The game is really laggy, you might need to consider optimising your code NOW. my computer specs are, 4gb DDR3 RAM, Intel Core i5-2410M 2.3GHz CPU and 750 GB HDD and Nvidia gefore GT540M with CUDA 2gb DDR3 running windows 7. So there should be no reason for this game to lag even the slightest.

I don't like the bats, and there is no Training introduction, maybe convert the first few "areas" into basic training by adding information signs all over.

Otherwise, nice concept liked the game.

-ZeplashStudios

[Liorana]

I played a bit, saved and when I loaded, it started all over again.... , The game is really laggy, you might need to consider optimising your code NOW. my computer specs are, 4gb DDR3 RAM, Intel Core i5-2410M 2.3GHz CPU and 750 GB HDD and Nvidia gefore GT540M with CUDA 2gb DDR3 running windows 7. So there should be no reason for this game to lag even the slightest.

what? sorry to say but your computer is probably full of viruses. I played this on a 7 years old laptop with 0 lag... we are talking 1.4 ghz here... lag isnt from the game thats for sure. i tried on many really bad computer... and the only computer that lagged was the one that had a realllyy bad on board video card(64 mb)

[ZeplashStudios]

Virusses. lol yeah right, then tell me why can i play farcry 2 and left for dead 2 on full blast, I have AVG full internet security installed and updated fully, hmm, no I believe your wrong.

[Liorana]

Virusses. lol yeah right, then tell me why can i play farcry 2 and left for dead 2 on full blast, I have AVG full internet security installed and updated fully, hmm, no I believe your wrong.

are you perhaps trying to troll... sorry dont have time for that if your computer that can run far cry 2 can't run it properly and a computer that can't even run world of warcraft can... there is a problem with your computer. Also considering I made alot of people play with the game and no one ever said anything about lag... the fact that your game didn't even save mean something is wrong with the way you ran it. or you just didn't save at all.
and you thinking your computer is safe by having an anti virus is a huge mistake especially with AVG that consider almost every problem not registered as a virus

Edited by Liorana, 16 May 2012 - 03:53 PM.

[ZeplashStudios]

Well seems when i run full screen, it runs smoother. but the save thing still doesn't work!


And no I'm not a meme. seriously.... but the fact that you don't even want to look into it, shows a great deal of egoism, blaming others even before asking what and how it happened.

seriously.....

[Liorana]

but the fact that you don't even want to look into it, shows a great deal of egoism, blaming others even before asking what and how it happened.

seriously.....

it doesn't really work that way. If 1 person out of a 100 is having a problem. The problem has 99% chance to lies withing the user. (unscientifict fact)

you said "the game is very laggy" not "the game is lagging during certain parts".
So I simply assumed that the game was always lagging and that your fps was always low for some reason.

Other than that, the reason why it is not saving might be because of windows 7. You need to run the game in administrator mode to be able to access game files.
Windows 7 won't allow some programs to modify any files at all if you arent running the game in administrator mode.
Might also depend on where you run the game from if you're using sand box or running the game in a folder that as modification blocked.

Maybe your hard drive is about the brake. I tested this on a really slow hard drive and some loading screen took forever to load such as when you enter the crab boss room
but whenever its loading a file you will see the loading message at the bottom. Exept when talking to npc's but that is only affected by your CPU and hard drive speed and npc dialog and really small.
Also considering the fact that the game isn't complete yet all the sprite are loaded into the ram and that isnt going to change until the game is completed.

Also the test I did on the older computer was in a dungeon that requires way more power then anything else in the game since it had surface modifying background to give a heat wave effect from lava and make another layer of rocks glow from the light.
So if your FPS is low(30 max fps, 60 if pixelization is on). that is your computer. either ram or Vram is having trouble but that shouldn't be the case since the game only takes 100 mb of ram even with all sprites. which is nothing for a 4gb ram card... and also considering that nearly no script other then the character and monster is running at all times. If the game just randomly freezing for .2 seconds every 2-3 second or something like that. it might be that some components of your computer is braking. I have a 10 years old computer that is on te verge of braking and it does that.

If it just slightly freezing before a scene or when going in another room, that's merely a loading time but I was talking about it with my friends and none of them noticed those until I pointed it out to them so it shouldn't be a problem.

Maybe you just have fraps on or some program like that, that force the FPS down.
or mayeb you just expect the game to run at 60 FPS and it doesn't

So don't try to make it sound like I scripted my game poorly and that I don't give a damn about people having problem when your "top of the line computer" isn't running it properly and some 7 years old laptop does it just fine. my computer which doesnt even come close to yours does it fine, all my friend's computer(most of them have way lower spec than me) plays it fine
I'm sorry but there is nothing you can argue here.

bad scripting don't make top of the line computer lag out of no where...bad script make bugs, glitches and other random stuff like that. Not lag on ONLY the most advanced gaming platform and smooth on the lowest.

[Fledermann]

Hi Liorana,

first of all i didn't experience lags. I played for 20 minutes so far, and Bathory Lineage appears quite promising. Being able to set the buttons is nice, unfortunately many people don't implement this in their games.
The overall visual style is appealing, the game imitates the graphics of nes-like games nicely. But not only are the graphics nes, the game is apparently "nintendo hard". The first level is full of goddamn bats, which have an annoying flying pattern which makes them impossible to kill after they dash down and are about to hit you from below. But that's okay, any gamer will be used to that.
I was also happy that the dialogue with the first mini-boss can be skipped entirely - that guy took me 7 tries.
The controls are decent, the moves (like the turbo-moonwalk) are great. Useful and well animated.
The dialogue seemed good so far, I liked the Oz reference.

The invulnerability phase after taking a hit should be a bit longer - maybe half a second. Often I took two hits because I couldn't move out of the enemy in time.
The first stage is repetitive. Only two types of mooks, no gameplay elements aside from the water.
I think you should be able to use the attack combos while crouching, since there's no reason not to.


As I said, I haven't played for more than 20 minutes yet, but I will. Keep up the good work!

Fledermann

[Fledermann]

A short update from my side:

I really want to play this game, because it is overall really well done and one can tell you put a lot of work into it.
But even the beginning of the game is insanely hard! I tried the second stage, the river, ten times and failed miserably. Here's the problem:
- after a hit, the hero gets knocked back castlevania-style
- the stream of the river pushes you back
- it's hard to attack in the water
- the enemies respawn instantly when out of sight

Everytime I take one single hit, I get knocked back. Usually into the river. The stream pulls me back even more. The enemies behind me respawn, and suddenly I get attacked from both sides. I can't defend myself because attacking in the water is not easy, and there's a crow and a knight coming from behind, and a knight and a fish from the other side. I can't run away because I'm slow in the water, and the fish and the crow are way faster anyway. So, I'm standing there helplessly while they drain all my energy.

I hope you see the problem here. Lots of people, including me, enjoy a good challenge. But this stage crosses the line. One hit triggers a deadly chain reaction, and this gets frustrating. The spikes aren't helping either, I just couldn't get out of the water and the spikes underneath me drained all my life. The difficulty really reminds of Ninja Gaiden for the NES.
Such difficulty is fine for the later levels, because the player will be more comfortable with the controls by then. But the second stage should be a bit more forgiving.

Fledermann

[Liorana]

yea i actually changed that stage later on... removed alot of spikes... slowed down the fishes and the current