Announcement

[Ronove]

Please find me on either RMN (http://rpgmaker.net/games/3554/) or RPG Maker Web Forums (http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/t...tealing-prince/). Hope to see you there!

This post has been edited by Ronove: Mar 17 2012, 01:49 AM

[Ronove]

Hey this is up! If you play the demo, I'm very interested in what you think. It should only take 30 minutes or so (depending on if you speed through or check everything out). The battle system in the demo doesn't have a feature that'll be present in the whole game though. In the battle, if your character (or the enemy) gets hit by their weakness, then they are stunned for that turn (there is a certain percentage which is determined by your armor and all that kind of stuff). However, this wasn't finished for the demo and I'm still working on the kinks. Also, if you get lost in the demo (can't find doors?) press the Y key (I have that as S on my keyboard--yours may be different)--arrows will show up to indicate where doors are.

[adrien.]

this game looks really good im doing the exact same thing with my maps the whole arrow thing. ill following this game for sure

[Ronove]

If you want, adrien, I have a script that allows you by the press of a button to flip a switch which makes the arrows appear (or whatever event that has that switch as a condition to show up). If you're just going to use an events, it's quite easy. Let me know if you want it to help your maps.

This post has been edited by Ronove: Jul 4 2011, 09:01 PM

[JV25]

Wow, i have been waiting for a demo of this game, this seems really interesting.
I really liked the game, i will be tracking this one;)

[babyangelgirl2]

I'm going to give this a try and get back to you on it a bit later. I like the graphics quite a bit already, you're using parallaxes, are you not? Very well done.

[amerkevicius]

Overall, this is a very impressive game. The mapping is some of the best I've seen come out of the RMVX editor (I'm assuming, though, that it's parallax), and the audio was well composed. The people are quite entertaining and I enjoyed the ideas presented behind the story (the dream sequence freaked me out). I also liked how even minor NPC's had a detailed role in that they'd appear in various areas and say new things (ie., the cat in the pub, for example).

However.... there are several things that will need to get fixed, including one major game-crashing bug that did me in.

First, in various areas the text gets cut off rather being skipped to the next line. Most of the spelling and grammar were excellent, although one that comes to mind is something about the prince's late father locking the girl in the tower to preserve himself, although the word "to" was missing from "to preserve".

Now for the bigger issues. Lots of lagging took place in my game play. I assume with the detail put into this game you have anti-lagging script?

Next, when I first left the kingdom to go to the forest. After I saved my game and then picked up later from where I was, the audio was completely out of wack. First, the title music carried over into the game and overlapped with the regular music; second, there seemed to be a delay with the regular music so, for example, when I entered the forest the world map music carried over a few seconds before the forest music kicked in, and I think the title music continued to play regardless. This was remedied by closing out and re-opening the game app.

Finally, what did me in. In Chapter 1, I am to leave the kingdom to venture into the forest. After fighting the beasts in the forest for awhile, going back out and returning in order to grind a little, I decided to return to the kingdom and sell my loot, pick up a few tonics, and heal my character. I then saved the game. However, when I leave to return to the forest, the prince says the same exact thing as in the prologue (that he's too tired, wants to see his people and then head to the castle). Odd, so I decided to head to the castle and see what was going on. Well, he entered the throne room and could go no further. A nun blocked the way out of the throne room, a duplicate prince sat on the throne, Richard's sprite stared at the prince, of which I could walk through, and none of the NPC's would say anything. So I decided to close out and re-open the game, but that's when I realized my saved copy had reverted back to the Prologue (it was no longer Chapter 1), although I already had all the items and level gains I got from Chapter 1. Not sure what happened here, but alas I was unable to continue.

[Ronove]

@amerkevicious: There are a lot of places where the text gets cut off? I swore I caught all those--I was very meticulous about that. Sorry about that. And thank you for catching the not being able to leave the town a second time--I must have forgotten to flip some switches, how embarrassing. I'll check everything out to see if I can fix that--I really thought my testers got that.

Where was the lagging at? All the anti-lag scripts I have used in the past errored me out, so I haven't found one to use and you're the only one who's told me it really lags.

And sorry to anyone else who experiences these bugs. :\ No matter how much testing I've done, I guess it's never enough. I'm really sorry about this.

-- Edit: I uploaded a new version where fighting the monsters shouldn't screw with the story progression. If anyone still has this problem in the newly updated demo, please let me know.

Next, when I first left the kingdom to go to the forest. After I saved my game and then picked up later from where I was, the audio was completely out of wack. First, the title music carried over into the game and overlapped with the regular music; second, there seemed to be a delay with the regular music so, for example, when I entered the forest the world map music carried over a few seconds before the forest music kicked in, and I think the title music continued to play regardless. This was remedied by closing out and re-opening the game app.

I cannot recreate this bug--is there anything special you did?

This post has been edited by Ronove: Jul 5 2011, 03:33 AM

[bioteam]

This game is astounding. The atmosphere was enjoyable, the mapping and the music was impressive, I loved how rooms in certain houses had "open concepts" (you can exit from the room in 2 ways instead of 1). I didn't really see any bugs except for some scenes at the throne room when Rufus is walking up (or down), he appears over the ceiling that cuts across the room. Also, in the cave, you should add some restoratives that cure poison when the spiders attack you >.< I had to restart the game frommy save file because I was dying of poison >.<

[Emmych]

Just finished playing this - and I gotta say, I am pretty impressed! This is an all around solid project you have going here!
I've got a few nitpicky things, but nothing too big; overall this was awesome! .w.d

The text size is a bit small - I found my eyes straining a bit when reading it. Also, the text clicking got SUPER grating after awhile. I'd recommend using a different sound effect or ditching it all together. I'd actually recommend different sound effects for basically everything - the VX RTP sounds are all pretty grating. I would suggest using sounds from the XP RTP (I have no idea why they switched back the the 2k and 2k3 SEs when the XP ones are so much nicer, but that's beside the point. OTL )

Two graphical things: First, you gotta line up the sprites better on the sprite sheet. When Snowe walks around, it looks like he's tottering everywhere! A trick I use when spriting (and how I lined up my original template) was to crop out a single sprite, then use the Adjust Canvas Size function in Photoshop and adjust the horizontal size by 300% and the vertical one by 400%. It get's you a perfect sized sprite sheet for a custom sprite! :3
I also think you’d benefit from Amethyst’s movement script – the steps seem a bit too long right now. The half-tile thing would be just perfect, I think! Also, a script that slows the dash speed a little – this seems a bit TOOOO fast.

Two dialogue things I noticed:
When the prince get's back to town in the prologue, he says: “My mother always did it whenever she came home" or something. I think “prayed” would be a better choice of words her. Then, In the prince's room: if you check the two chairs, he talks about how it's a nice couch. Which is, uh... NOT CORRECT. xD

But yeah, other than that - this was really good! I loved the little details everywhere and the NPCs were awesome. I can tell you put a lot of love into this, and I can't wait to see more. c: I'm definitely supporting this~!

Good luck with this - it's a very promising project~!

[amerkevicius]

@amerkevicious: There are a lot of places where the text gets cut off? I swore I caught all those--I was very meticulous about that. Sorry about that. And thank you for catching the not being able to leave the town a second time--I must have forgotten to flip some switches, how embarrassing. I'll check everything out to see if I can fix that--I really thought my testers got that.

Where was the lagging at? All the anti-lag scripts I have used in the past errored me out, so I haven't found one to use and you're the only one who's told me it really lags.

And sorry to anyone else who experiences these bugs. :\ No matter how much testing I've done, I guess it's never enough. I'm really sorry about this.

-- Edit: I uploaded a new version where fighting the monsters shouldn't screw with the story progression. If anyone still has this problem in the newly updated demo, please let me know.



I cannot recreate this bug--is there anything special you did?

I've been using the AS Antilag Script by Andrew McKellar (Anaryu) and find it works wonders. I have not had much use with parallax maps yet, so not sure if it would have any impact at all. However, I've had maps with hundreds of animated picture tile events (burning candle, water fountain, etc) and the lag seems to have disappeared. It's also possible that it's my computer, since I had a few other applications opened at the time. But if you haven't tried it, you could give this antilag script a test.

http://www.rpgmakervx.net/index.php?showtopic=6267

Scroll down to Zeriab's comment for this script.

In any case, I wouldn't say the "cut off" happened a lot, but it was noticeable, and seemed to occur mainly in conversations you had whilst in the castle.

As for the messed up music, it might have been just a fluke. What happened was I hit the F12 button to go back to the title screen and continued from my last save. I got into battle and an error popped up (not sure what it said), but that appears normal for a lot of games where you hit the F12 and continue versus closing the app out and then re-opening it. After I got that error, the app closed down, I then re-opened it, hit continue, and that's where the messed up audio occurred, so I closed and re-opened it again, and then it was fine. Again, it may have just been an unpreventable fluke.

I'm not sure what happened with that big game crasher, though. For awhile I was able to come and leave as I did, without any problems. I fought until I leveled up one time, and then I visited the item shop to sell all the ghost rags. that's when the problem occurred, switching me back to the prologue, although not sure if it was again another fluke, tied into leveling up, or selling the ghost rags.

[Ronove]

@ amerkevicius: I have tried that one, but I will try again and see if I can find one, don't worry. I never use F12 to leave a game, because to be honest I hear it screws everything up, so I just suggest don't use that. I don't test my game that way and maybe I should just find a way to disable it. And I already explained why the game reverted back to the prologue--the monsters you were fighting use a variable to randomize. A few in the forest had the wrong variable to randomize them and thus changed the chapter variable which controls how the townspeople react. I'm just glad it was either 0 or 1 for the variable and not 2 or 3 or 4. 8D That would have been disastrous.

@ emmych: jeez, I thought I could get away with calling those couches. I guess I should have put arm chair, hahahaha. And I know Snowe totters when he walks, but I thought that had a bit of charm as people do totter when they walk. If you think it's too distracting, I can realign him. I'll also look into that script--I've never heard of it. And I like my super speedy devils, but again, I'll check that out too if it's too distracting. -- Okay, I was wondering if people would find that SE grating. I take it out and it feels lonely, so I haven't figured out what to do yet. D: I've grown to like it. But, I will fiddle around. It actually used to be louder, believe it or not. I thought I got the volume down just enough to be less grating. I'll check out using different SE, but I find them just fine so if I don't like the other stuff, you'll be stuck with the VX ones.
--Edit: So I put in the script you mentioned. I don't know if I'll use it yet--it screws up a nearly all of my events where I use the move route it seems and for some reason it doesn't let me walk near people sometimes. But, I will fiddle with it from your suggestion. I don't personally see a difference the script really makes, but no harm making it fit.

@ bioteam: If you explored the town thoroughly, you can find at least 3 antidotes. In addition, you can find some money as well and get more antidotes that way because Snowe can really just use cure to heal himself (provided you explored and found his cure spell) for his HP so you don't need to buy too many tonics. And I will check out Richard walking across the room like that--silly sprites walking where they're not supposed to (and making me completely miss it, sheesh Ronove, your brain needs to test this better).

This post has been edited by Ronove: Jul 5 2011, 02:41 PM

[inika41]

I really thought the demo was very engaging. An interesting setting, an intriguing story, and well, really nice maps.

I just have one question, are the enemies in the begining going to be kept as weak as they are, or are you going to make them stronger in a later demo? Its not an issue( I like 1-hit killing them), I'm just wondering out of curiosity.

[Ronove]

@inika41: Since you only have Snowe in the demo, I figured I shouldn't make them too hard. If you feel I should up the difficulty, I can see what I can do. The enemies get harder as you gain more party members, so they aren't kept that easy throughout the entire game. And this should be the ONLY demo as the game is going to be short (well, shorter than some games here and definitely shorter than big-name RPGs). Thank you for your comments. C:

[inika41]

@inika41: Since you only have Snowe in the demo, I figured I shouldn't make them too hard. If you feel I should up the difficulty, I can see what I can do. The enemies get harder as you gain more party members, so they aren't kept that easy throughout the entire game. And this should be the ONLY demo as the game is going to be short (well, shorter than some games here and definitely shorter than big-name RPGs). Thank you for your comments. C:

Ah, I see. Well, there isn't any need to make these enemies any harder, as you said, we only have Snowe so far.

I only inquired because I'm having my own troubles with making enemies in my own project.

Well then, good luck to both of us!

[Matthias]

I played through your demo and while playing I made some remarks in notebook. Here they are:
* Beautiful introscreen
* Prologue is nice, music creates great mood, the written text is quite poetic, which I like. Option to skip the prologue
is always good for the less patient players.
* Text size in conversations is indeed rather small, but I could read it good enough. I can understand why people
could have problems with it though.
* Your mapping is superb. I love how you can interact with almost everything. Well done! The possibility to dust
the dishes is a nice touch.
* Exploring the town is fun at first, but maybe you should have included some items to find, which should make it more
rewarding to actually do that exploring.
* The dreamsequence is really freaky and well composed. Well done, again.
* When going into the first 'dungeon', the forest, I like that you made the battles rather easy. Most of the games
make you leveling and going back to town to get you buy better equipment, but here it goes rather smoothly. I do hope
that the difficulty goes up a notch after a while though.
* Your scarecrow-thingy is well thought out, with a nice catch. The rats in the cave are more of a challenge to
battle too.
* Aaah, the unbeattable boss!
* It's a shame your demo ended there, but if you keep working with the same enthuasiasm, you've got a great game on your
hands. Keep it up!

I honestly look forward to a next playable demo!

[Ronove]

* Exploring the town is fun at first, but maybe you should have included some items to find, which should make it more
rewarding to actually do that exploring.

See, I thought about that, but then I remembered that you're a prince/king and the people trust you with every fiber of their being. I just didn't feel right letting you plunder their items unless they told you it was okay. It just seems odd. If that's a major complaint, I'll see if I can add stuff outside their homes to add. I just can't get past the you're in charge and you're being an ass and stealing their items! XD

* Aaah, the unbeattable boss!

Yeahhhhh I'm mean. You get revenge later.

Thank you for the comments! I really appreciate it!

[amerkevicius]

I actually wondered about that myself. You're the prince, yet you can just walk right into their homes. So I agree with not being able to plunder. However, it's a 2-edged sword, so not being able to plunder in these houses may give rise to people failing to plunder wherever it's needed. So one suggestion would be to do a sort of starlight around items that can be plundered (but then that takes away the element of surprise since people know there's loot there) or add in things to plunder outside of town, as in barrels and chests. The latter may be more to your liking since it still will surprise people when they find loot, and it can be considered stealing since it's outside.

[Ronove]

You can walk into their homes because they trust you. It's not all that odd. If you were some random stranger they would kick you out.

However, yeah definitely going to add items to find in town (I thought I had added some, but I guess I forgot to transfer those over). And I figure it's a case of "finders keepers" when you find an item outside. But going through the townspeople's underwear drawers? That might be pushing it even IF you're the prince and can probably do whatever you very well please.

[amerkevicius]

Yes, but part of an expectance in all rpg's is to rumage through people's underwear, hoping for that one piece of morsel that they can consume when it's most needed... we just don't tell them what that morsel really is.

But you are right, since he is the prince I guess it's expected he can enter homes, which makes a lot more sense than some random stranger off the streets. Still, it's become such an expected cliche that it now strikes me as odd when I can't enter a home and steal a person's belongings. Ah, the cruelty of the gaming world!