Announcement

[Ashvir]

Lost Heaven

Platform- RPG Maker VX

The demo offers about 7-9 hours of gameplay. The game itself is relatively linear and is heavily story-based. I'm working on making it more open ended. I've been using RPG Maker ever since RM2k first came out, but this is my first serious project. Any sort of feedback or criticism is greatly appreciated.

Story

Spoiler:

The world of Terra (lol generic world name) is ruled over by four kingdoms; Cannock, Midenhall, Moonbrooke, and Rhone. Though the present era is a time of peace, Cannock is by far the most powerful in terms of economy, military, and territory. King Aegeus and Captain Moroes, the royal and military leaders of Cannock, respectively, are definitely not content with this peace. They obtain a so-called "immortality elixir" (which actually just reanimates corpses into zombies) which they use to rally the troops and citizens of Cannock to promote a war on the rest of the world. Unfortunately for them, and all of humanity, this war is all part of a plot to spread chaos throughout the world. A mysterious group of beings in the Terran underworld are waiting for the world to fall into disorder; only then will they be able to rise up and eliminate all of humanity from Terra.

Beatrix Mireyu (a well respected knight), Talint Hirado (the alchemist who was forced to work in a lab in underground catacombs for the past 5 years), and Leena Moroes (Moroes' daughter) find themselves as unlikely allies. They must decide what to do in response to Captain Moroes's declaration of war on the rest of the world, starting with the nearby kingdom of Midenhall. Will they stand by their kingdom, even though know it is wrong? Or will they defect and attempt to warn the other kingdoms? They do not even realize the true importance of their actions, and only time will tell.

All the while, the main protagonist Kyle Loto is lost in a forest attempting to deliver a mysterious package from Cannock to Midenhall. Time and time again, Kyle sees demonic visions, and hears a sinister sounding voice from within his own soul speak to him. He thinks that he is going crazy, but in reality the creature trapped within his soul may be the key to humanities salvation. Narrowly escaping a cave-in, he meets Larsen and Aiko, two friendly people from Moonbrooke. They happen to also be heading to Midenhall, in order to take a ship back to Moonbrooke, so they agree to let Kyle stay with them in their forest cabin until they all depart. But Aiko and Larsen are not just normal citizens. It turns out that they have a deeper, and more regal past.

I don't want to spoil too much of the story, just play the game! It may be a tad bit cliche, but the characters, dialog, and gameplay make it very enjoyable, I assure you.

Characters

Spoiler:

Kyle Loto
Age: 19
Hometown: Cannock
Class: Warrior
Special Command: Focus; increases attack power and recovers a small amount of MP. MP gain scales with level.
Description: The first character and the "main" protagonist of the story. He is a sarcastic yet optimistic young man from Cannock who was orphaned at a young age. Ever since he was a child, he has heard a dark voice speaking to him, but these were rare occurrences until very recently. After his life in the orphanage, Kyle began to live with his godfather, a mysterious man tied with the Cannock government. Unfortunately, his godfather refuses to tell Kyle anything about his real parents, who were apparently scientists working for the government. Eventually even his godfather abandons him and Kyle is forced to fend for himself. Due to economic hardships, he was almost evicted from his home. However, his landlord offered to let Kyle stay as long as he delivers a mysterious package to the nearby kingdom of Midenhall. The story beings with Kyle taking a shortcut through the Tangle Woods, but unfortunately for him, the path to Midenhall has long been overgrown...


Beatrix Mireyu
Age: 20
Hometown: Cannock
Class: Knight
Special Command: Pious Strike; does 70% of the damage of a normal attack, but heals the user for the amount inflicted.
Description: Beatrix was also an orphan, and has been friends with Kyle ever since their days in the orphanage. However, unlike Kyle, she was eventually adopted by a noble family and grew up to join the Cannock military as a Knight. She tries her best to support her friend Kyle, but her duties often get in the way. She is a well respected knight, and was promoted to knighthood at a very young age because of her desire to protect the kingdom and promote peace. She is constantly conflicted between her love for her kingdom and her altruistic desire to do the right thing.


Leena Moroes
Age: 17
Hometown: Cannock
Class: Cleric
Special Command: Protect; increases defense of all party members.
Description: Leena is a soft-spoken young girl who is prone to following orders no matter what. Her father is a very cold, calculated man who is on his way to becoming the military leader of the most powerful kingdom in the world. She knows that his actions are wrong, but does not know what to do. Trained in the art of white magic by the Rising Flame civilian militia group, Leena is an able fighter against undead, but her true dream is to simply help people around the world as a traveling cleric.


Talint Hirado
Age: 41
Hometown: Cannock
Class: Alchemist
Special Command: Lock-on, slightly lowers def/agi of an enemy, prevents them from ever evading, and shows their current HP/MP.
Description: A senior scientist with a mysterious past. Talint was the most brilliant alchemist in all of Cannock, but was forced by King Aegeus and Moroes to work on a secret government project deep in the Catacombs. He is doing unholy research on corpses, forced to unlock the key to immortality; yet the only thing he achieves is reanimation and the formation of undead monstrosities. He tends to drown away the sorrows of his work with massive quantities of alcohol.


James Larsen
Age: 35
Hometown: Moonbrooke
Class: Grappler
Special Command: Flurry; attacks three random targets for slightly less damage than normal attacks.
Description: Not much is known about Larsen; besides the fact that he has a government position in Moonbrooke and is almost always accompanying Aiko. Along with Aiko, he owns a small cabin in the Tangle Woods, where they use as a vacation spot to get work done in peace. This is where they run into Kyle. Although he is direct and brutally honest, Larsen tends to find humor in unlikely situations.


Aiko Suziku
Age: 22
Hometown: Moonbrooke
Class: Mage
Special Command: Mana Drain; absorbs MP from the target, scales with level.
Description: Aiko also has a mysterious past, though her attitude and clothing seem to indicate a history of royalty. She puts on a charade of toughness, but often shows her vulnerable and squeamish side. Her love of animals is ironic considering the fact that she is a master of fire magic and burning.

Screenshots

Spoiler:

Setting passive skills:

Features

Spoiler:

-Sideview battle system (Dervvulfman's Animated Battlers)
-Lots of customization through passive skills and equipment
-Deep storyline
-Visible enemies instead of random battles (as of demo v.3)
-Secret items and skills
-Engaging boss battles
-Cutscenes that aren't too boring
-Exciting and reactive spells and skills

Download

Spoiler:

Demo v.3.

This is the latest demo, uploaded on April 18, 2009.

The file this time is massive (240 MB) because I've decided to use more mp3s. If filesize becomes a huge problem, I may end up reuploading another demo which uses midi alternatives for most of the mp3s. This could trim off up to 100 MB, but would reduce the quality and experience of the game.

Credits

Spoiler:

As for scripts, massive thanks go out to:
DerVVulfman, Woratana, Mr. Anonymous, Touchfuzzy, KGC, Kylock, Yeyinde, Mac Malone, Synthesize, Moghunter, Dargor, DeadlyDan, ERZENGEL, SephirothSpawn, puppeto4, Lomexi, Twilight, Star, Mr. Bubble, Nechi, Watermelon, Originalwij, and Mithran.

For resources (charsets, facesets, and others), huge thanks go out to:
Aerendyll, Kaos/Avenger, Gendo, Jonny Rocks hard, Razvan Sedekiah, Antares, biabia, macys_hero, Pinedavx, and Hikari_Sword.

Also thanks to zbdarkflame for some really sweet battle animations.

Please let me know if I am missing anybody. I also want to give a big thank you to every single person that took the time to test play my demos. Without your feedback (and compliments, hehe) I wouldn't have been nearly as motivated to spend so much time on this project. The criticism has also drastically increased the quality of my work, and I truly do appreciate it. You're all awesome to the max.

FAQ

Spoiler:

Q: Some of the battle sprites are ugly and glitchy! WHY?!
A: I was too lazy to make sure they were completely aligned, and many of the resources I obtained weren't quite perfect. Rest assured, these will be fixed.

Q: YOUR CUTSCENES ARE WAY TOO LONG, BRO!
A: Yeah, they are. These cutscenes are so long that you'll have time to fly to Africa, cure AIDs, fly to India, learn sanskrit, and then fly back home before the cutscene is over. But they're all important and I tried to make them as interesting as possible.

Q: Why is Midenhall such a ghost town?
A: I'll flesh it out later on, for now just get to the castle like I told you to! And don't talk back to me ever again!

Q: Near the end there are way too many cutscenes, what's your problem brah?!
A: My game design method is to get through the bare bones of the storyline first, and then go back and add extras later. There will be a lot more fun stuff to do in between cutscenes in the final release...but remember, this is still just a demo. Things will look prettier in the end.

Q: This game killed my parents, and raped my dog.
A: You'll get no sympathy from me, because I fight for my friends.

Notes

Spoiler:

There shouldn't be any glitches, but let me know if you run into any problems. There are a few stupid little things I need to fix; such as characters standing on top of beds since I don't have sleeping sprites yet, and some characters need to be recolored. Those are just minor things though. I did delete a lot of graphic and audio files from my folder that were unused in the game, but in my haste I may have removed used files. Please let me know if the game is missing any graphics or sound effects and gives you an error. Enjoy!

NOTE: If you are using Windows Vista, the Save system screenshots may all just be black images UNLESS you turn off Aero in the display settings.

Support
Here's a userbar you can put in your sig if you want to support the game!

CODE

[url="http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showtopic=1750&st=0&start=0"][img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v479/Ashvir/LostHeaven.jpg[/img][/url]

This post has been edited by Ashvir: Jun 4 2009, 11:03 PM

[Justice]

Nice maps, DLing now...

[MSVHazard]

I played a little bit. Beat the first "boss", and I have to say I am impressed. I'm enjoying myself, and the overall system is nice. Especially the equipment system.

I plan on playing more soon.

[techie]

Wow! that was AMAZING!!! very professional! I can't wait to see more! Amazing job on the spriting! But here are a few things I want to point out.

1. There are quite a few issues with the battle sprites. You might want to take a look at that. (especially the spider one)
2. The main actor has 3 different hair colors. Orange on map, Brown on battle sprite, Red hair for his face set.
3. I saw on one of the forest maps that the far right side wasn't fully completed. the other side wasn't filled in.
4. You might want to make the battle animations smaller.
5. Some of the jokes (even though the were funny), weren't really appropriate for the game. By that I mean when he said "thats what she said" That was god damn hilarious, but I don't really think it fit the setting.
6. Some of the actor's faces didn't really fit the situation, for example, The main guy had a crying face set after the wolves.

Fix those, and your game will be damn close to perfect. If you need any help graphically, just ask me

This post has been edited by techie: Apr 16 2008, 11:09 PM

[MSVHazard]

playing the game right now, have to say that the battle system is AMAZING. but the sprites for the spider enemy is very glitchy

I noticed that too.

[Ashvir]

Yeah, sorry about that. A couple of the enemy sprites are rather glitchy, simply because that's how I downloaded them. Soon I'm going to paste them onto a template and move them around to make sure that different frames don't overlap. Thanks for the reminder and the compliments. =D

(oh and the Werewolf sprite is especially bad, please forgive me for that one haha...it'll be fixed later on.)

[Chrispy]

Chrispy's Officially Unofficial Review ::: Lost Heaven(Demo)


Battle System
When I first downloaded this demo, I thought (Are you Mad!?! It will be nearly impossible to balance everything with that many pieces of equipment!) When I got into the game though, I realized that all of the pieces of armor add up to the total, and no piece is really that much more important than the other anymore. In most other games, if you got the Grand helmet in stead of the Grand Armor, your screwed. But it all was balanced very nicely, and the difficulty curve for the battles was also easy to manage and get right into it.

Speaking of Difficulty, when I fought the first boss, I killed it it in a very short time(pfft. easy). When I got to the Werewolf boss, it suddenly got way more intresting. The ecounter rate was rather low as well throughout, but it didn't want you to yell out for any signs of life. The Battle system really amazed me though. Every single attack you made had their importance, and you were almost assurredly using every one(not counting the weaker versions of attacks) to get the most out of them, even what few you had to deal with in the demo. The buffs and debuffs were actually useful, unlike in many other games.

What didn't amaze me was the battle system graphics. It has been said allready that they were glitchy, Dang, were they glitchy! Its a work in progress though like you said.


Story and writing
The Story. ITS AWESOME. little more to say than that. You gave every character their own individual personality and it really helped to carry the story along. it dragged in parts though, but it was all around allright.

Your writing. Also pretty good. many small errors here and there.


maps
Your mapping was pretty good for what you had to deal with, and the music for the maps fit the situation pretty well, even though 95% of it was well reconizable. You weren't kidding when you said you had alot of it in your game file.

There was a few errors though. One such is that in the harpy cave, there was a Rock that had the animation to be underwater, but it was on solid ground and looked kind of wierd.


Graphics
the graphics though. Eh, the Character sprites, their face graphics, and their battle sprites didn't match. I do hope that you are working on that one.



Other stuff
The fishing minigame seemed kinda dumb, all I did was pick bait, then press enter really fast. whatever.


Also I browsed through the other files, and the picture titled '01' was funny.


I give it a 4.4/5

I am definitely looking foward to a completed version of ths game.

[Ashvir]

Thanks a lot for the feedback, Chrispy. The fishing minigame is definitely a work in progress, as are the sprites. I was mostly focusing on the story for the demo, but thanks for bringing those issues up. And sorry about that rock, I accidentally left it in there since I copied that map from another one that DID have water there. Must've missed that! And lol, I had quite a few other funny pictures that I was going to use for my credits as a joke, but some of them may have been a bit...offensive? So I deleted them, haha.

The majority of this game was developed during one week (spring break for me) so I apologize if a lot of things seem rushed. This quarter I'm really swamped with upper div classes, working in two research labs, and preparing for grad school, so I just wanted to get this demo out before I had to start studying for midterms, hehe. With this feedback I hope to continue and improve this game over the summer, so I really appreciate the review. The final product will be much less rough, don't worry. =D

This post has been edited by Ashvir: Apr 16 2008, 02:23 AM

[MSVHazard]

I played a wee bit more and got to the werewolf boss. I enjoyed myself, and the fishing mini-game was kindof neat. I really do enjoy this.

[Whatever]

Very good! I was interested right off the bat by the background story you get before even playing.

The only thing I would suggest as far as story is concerned is that you give us a bit more info about Kyle a bit sooner. You do eventually talk about his childhood a bit, but it seems to me (so far) that Kyle's existence is very mundane and pointless. He doesn't seem to have anything driving him to achieve something (i.e., he has no bad guy to kill, no princess to save, no axe to grind). He's just sort of loitering around in the game. I'm only assuming that he'd eventually have some kind of obstacle to face or some major difficulty to overcome, but like I said, it would be nice to have this sooner.

Much of what I'd say has already been said by others regarding graphics and the battle system, and so forth, so I won't waste my breath (er... I mean my fingers?).

However:

1 - imho, the stepping sound effect is annoying as hell. Get rid of it. I cringe at the prospect of having to listen to this for the entire game (however many hours it will end up being...).

2 - music is.... "interesting". A couple of the songs seem a bit out of place, not totally appropriate to the mood. (I think at one point it's a mixture between a rock song and a more typical rpg-esque flavour.) That's just an opinion though, I dunno what other people think...

3 - Change the name of Lake Ontario You're breaking the unwritten rule that says that you're not allowed to use real names

4 - Your cut scenes aren't too long, even if you think so yourself. Don't let the illiterate masses force you to dumb down your game. I think your story has a lot of potential. It just needs a bit of tweaking.

5 - I'll also agree with everyone else about the fishing game. You should make it optional. Side quests, mini-games, etc. have much potential for people who like exploring, but for people like me (who just HATE being forced to repeatedly press a button or go "e-fishing", or who just hate fishing as a sport in general), this is really a turn-off.



All things considered, I would say that this game is a very solid 8.5 out of 10, and will probably be a 9.5 or even a perfect 10 once you iron out all the little graphics bugs, and if you make a few minor changes.

This is really great, I'm really looking forward to seeing it completed!!

This post has been edited by Whatever: Apr 16 2008, 03:57 AM

[Ashvir]

Thanks Whatever, I'll keep that in mind.

I definitely have a much bigger role planned for Kyle, and things will definitely heat up in the full version once both parties run into each other. I guess he does seem like an annoying character at first, so he'll get fleshed out a bit more. I'm also planning on making the stepping sound effect much quieter, or getting completely rid of it. I personally thought it might be annoying as well, but kept it just because it was something...different?

And I forgot about that unwritten rule; I'll change the name to Lake Whatever, since you pointed it out. Haha just kidding, but don't worry; I'll think of a better name. Thanks for the feedback dude. I'm glad you're enjoying the game too, MSVHazard.

This post has been edited by Ashvir: Apr 16 2008, 04:24 AM

[MSVHazard]

"I'm glad you're enjoying the game too, MSVHazard."


Oh indeed. The battle system is pretty neat too. I'm not worried about the monster graphics much, since I know how hard it is to make something perfect.

[techie]

I updated my previous post, so you might want to take at it

EDIT: Forgot to mention. That music that you used with kyle, Is that a remix of a song from FFX?


GLITCH FOUND

when you are in the harpy cave, you can walk over the black pit in the third or second map.


ANOTHER GLITCH FOUND
(this one crashes the game)
The *gun midi* or something like that was not found. It was found in the area outside of the catacombs.

This post has been edited by techie: Apr 17 2008, 12:56 AM

[LoirimBR]

Can you pass to me these facesets, I really like it!
About your game, it's good, I downloading the demo to analize better.

EDIT

Man! Your game is very good! Terrific! About the Battle script you are using, it's Kurea Cyber? The battle system is beautyful!

This post has been edited by LoirimBR: Apr 19 2008, 04:14 PM

[Ashvir]

Thanks for noting those glitches, Techie. I'll keep your feedback in mind too, and I may just take up your offer some day if I need help with graphics. I'm working on making the battle sprites/charactersets/facesets all match each other. I realize they look kind of dumb right now. And yeah, a couple of the songs are remixed FFX songs from OCremix.org

And thanks for the compliments, LoirimBR. This is the thread where I got all of my facesets from:
http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showto...t=0&start=0
The battle system is Dervvulfman's Animated Battlers, using Minkoff style RO sprites.

And I must've accidentally deleted that soundfile when I was making my game folder smaller. Here's a download link to the missing file just in case:
http://files.filefront.com/1+pistolwav/;10019984;/

I edited the original post to show this glitch as well. And thanks everyone for the feedback!

This post has been edited by Ashvir: Apr 20 2008, 08:12 PM

[Bymus]

Hey, great game there my friend.

Just a few comments: I think the foot step sounds are very annoying.

Also I opened the game file on RMVX and saw the world map and I noticed that at the place where there is a transition from a grass land to tundra there's an event with the script

$game_system.bb = "008-Snowfield01"

I suppose that script is for the change in battle background. I find that very intelligent.

I just want to know how to put battle backgrounds in my game battles and how to change them at different terrains.

Thanks.

[Ashvir]

Thanks Bymus, glad you like it. I've pretty much gotten rid of the footsteps now, so don't worry about that.

As for the script to actually have battle backgrounds, I just use this one done by Synthesize:

CODE

#======================================================================
=========
# Battle Backgrounds - RMVX
#===============================================================================
# Written by Synthesize
# January 20, 2008
# Version 1.00A
#===============================================================================
# * This script is untested. *
#===============================================================================
module SynBattleB
# Place your battle backgrounds in the 'Pictures' folder (Graphics/Pictures)
# Format = {map_id => Battleback Name}
Battle_background =
{
1 => "010-CastleTown02",

}
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Create the battlefloor?
Create_battlefloor = false
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# This was being requested on quite a fe forums now, so I threw a quick script
# together. It is nice and simple, and does what it is suppsoed to do. Once
# RMVX is released in English, then I will add additional features into this.
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
end
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Spriteset_Battle
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
class Spriteset_Battle
alias syn_create_battlefloor create_battlefloor
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Create Battleback
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
def create_battleback
image = SynBattleB::Battle_background[$game_map.map_id]
@battleback_sprite = Sprite.new(@viewport1)
@battleback_sprite.bitmap = Cache.picture(image)
end
def create_battlefloor
@battlefloor_sprite = Sprite.new(@viewport1)
syn_create_battlefloor if SynBattleB::Create_battlefloor == true
end
end
#===============================================================================
# * This script is untested *
#===============================================================================
# Version 1.00A
# January 20, 2008
# Written by Synthesize
#===============================================================================
# Battle Backgrounds - RMVX
#===============================================================================

Using this you can set a different battle background for each map. I left my first map in the script as an example.

And yeah, the idea with that was so that the background would change when you went into a snowy area; but it involved a different script that I no longer use, and if I recall correctly it didn't work. That's why I scrapped the idea of a world map, and just left that map in the game just in case I change my mind.

This post has been edited by Ashvir: Apr 22 2008, 06:02 AM

[Bymus]

Thanks Bymus, glad you like it. I've pretty much gotten rid of the footsteps now, so don't worry about that.

As for the script to actually have battle backgrounds, I just use this one done by Synthesize:

CODE

#======================================================================
=========
# Battle Backgrounds - RMVX
#===============================================================================
# Written by Synthesize
# January 20, 2008
# Version 1.00A
#===============================================================================
# * This script is untested. *
#===============================================================================
module SynBattleB
# Place your battle backgrounds in the 'Pictures' folder (Graphics/Pictures)
# Format = {map_id => Battleback Name}
Battle_background =
{
1 => "010-CastleTown02",

}
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Create the battlefloor?
Create_battlefloor = false
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# This was being requested on quite a fe forums now, so I threw a quick script
# together. It is nice and simple, and does what it is suppsoed to do. Once
# RMVX is released in English, then I will add additional features into this.
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
end
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Spriteset_Battle
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
class Spriteset_Battle
alias syn_create_battlefloor create_battlefloor
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Create Battleback
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
def create_battleback
image = SynBattleB::Battle_background[$game_map.map_id]
@battleback_sprite = Sprite.new(@viewport1)
@battleback_sprite.bitmap = Cache.picture(image)
end
def create_battlefloor
@battlefloor_sprite = Sprite.new(@viewport1)
syn_create_battlefloor if SynBattleB::Create_battlefloor == true
end
end
#===============================================================================
# * This script is untested *
#===============================================================================
# Version 1.00A
# January 20, 2008
# Written by Synthesize
#===============================================================================
# Battle Backgrounds - RMVX
#===============================================================================

Using this you can set a different battle background for each map. I left my first map in the script as an example.

And yeah, the idea with that was so that the background would change when you went into a snowy area; but it involved a different script that I no longer use, and if I recall correctly it didn't work. That's why I scrapped the idea of a world map, and just left that map in the game just in case I change my mind.

Thanks, I've heard about that script but it doesn't have terrain specificity ie the battle background doesn't change according to the terrain, it just changes according to the map.

Is there any flexible script that allows you to change the battle background of a map like similar to what you did in the world map which is to trigger an event and call a script to change the battle background?

[Razvan-Sedekiah]

I have started to play the demo for this. It's really sophisticated!
I really love the ROL battlers! I want to try to make my own in a similar style! I didn't know we could do that!!
The way that you built the sets looks great!
I'm enjoying the story so far. I'll give a better report once I finish the demo!
Keep up the good work in the mean time.

[Fated]

I hope this is still being worked on, one of my favorite VX games currently and also I learned a lot from some of the things you've done.