Vacant Sky Complete Edition: Act I+ Released! Options

[Sailerius]

RPGMaker.net 2010 Misao award winner for:

Game of the Year

Best Storytelling and Direction

Best Setting

Best Atmosphere

Best Sound & Music

Best Gameplay Mechanics

Story
"I died once."

Vacant Sky is a modern fantasy RPG which follows the death and rebirth of Auria Edith, a small-town girl whose violent and unexpected death turns her world upside down. After her equally unexpected resurrection, Auria finds herself drawn into the heart of a mystery involving a cult of masked cultists who will stop at nothing to make her their goddess.


Characters

Auria is the story's protagonist. A passive-aggressive small town girl with a big mouth, Auria has the misfortune of being unceremoniously murdered. As the player, you will at times direct her decision-making and influence the relationship she has with her companions. Vacant Sky is ultimately about her path of self-discovery and your role is to nudge her in a certain direction. The way you direct her will control her characterization and change the outcome of the story.


Seri is a refugee from the war-torn overseas nation of Alibaas. She is currently seeking political asylum in the impoverished nation of Banivia. A kind-hearted and empathetic person, she supports Auria as she undergoes the at times grueling challenges laid out before her.


A childhood friend of Seri's, Zaqris is a quiet and polite young man who is escorting her on her exile from her homeland. He is more pragmatic than his counterpart and frequently butts heads with Auria over whether to do the easy thing or whether to do the right thing.


A self-proclaimed demon slayer in training, Rayonne encounters Auria and company on their trek through the Banivian countryside. He aspires to become a hero revered across the land and divides the world up into evil-doers and evil-fighters. His encounters with Auria and the strange events surrounding her lead him to question his convictions.


Features

• Branching story and characterization
• Significantly alter the course of the story with your choices - including six endings
• Original soundtrack composed by Tarranon, featuring vocal tracks by Melody Yoo and Melanie Ehrlich
• 8 playable characters (along with up to 6 guests)
• Customize Auria's stats and growth
• Select your own progression of skills to learn
• Interact with your party members to strengthen your relationship with them
• Unlock guest art title screens through sidequests

Screenshots

Download
http://www.mediafire.com/?gdkjjtubmedd8e2

This post has been edited by Sailerius: Sep 1 2012, 07:40 AM

[Guest_Black Shadow_*]

I think it looks interesting. I like the mapping and the story, although the town looked a bit square.

The only thing that bugged me is the characters age. I can't see a bunch of teenagers save the world. That's just wrong.

Other from that, good luck with your game.

[ccoa]

Sweet, this is released.

Hold on a few hours, I'll mirror the file for you.

[Sailerius]

The only thing that bugged me is the characters age. I can't see a bunch of teenagers save the world. That's just wrong.

Yeah, yeah. XD Just wait until Act II, when the second half of the cast is released. The mean age of the party rises about 6-7 years. You just happen to meet the youngsters first.

Hold on a few hours, I'll mirror the file for you.

Much appreciated! Thanks for the responses.

[darkhalo]

Your game presentation is one of the best Ive seen around in a while. Characters are interesting, and enough of the story to start things rolling. Nice artwork, infact it all gels together well so far. Ill play this
demo too. Im not sure bout the lockpicking (Shadow Madness the RPG) sent me loopy doing this.

[jens009]

Wow. This game looks really interesting. The graphics and storyline are also wonderful.

Downloading the demo.

[ccoa]

http://ccoa.pcis-studios.com/EPIC%20Contention%20Demo.rar

There you go. Faster download and less annoyance than Megaupload.

[jens009]

I've tried out the demo.

Here's my comments so far:
- The music is great. Kudos for not putting RTP music.
- I like your custom sprites. They blend quite well with the tilesets and they seem original.
- The mapping of the game is quite decent. Things are placed appropriately. It is obvious that there has been thought in the process of map making.
- ONce again, Kudos for modified RTP tilesets.
- I was a bit shock when there were DUB voices for the characters. I was impressed actually since it was pulled of very well.
- The battle system is quite confusing. Although it seems turn based, it acts as if it's an active time battle. That's not the bad part. The worse part is that when the enemy gets a chance to attack, my command window gets interrupted and I have to re-select my command. Eg: Say for example I'm using Actor 3's command window. Once of of the enemy attacks, the command window gets disrupted and i return to Actor 1's command window.
- Comment on battle system again: I didn't like how skills were overpowered while the regular attack of the actors were very much inferior.
Nevertheless, excluding the battle system, I'm very impressed with your game. The presentation, mapping, scripting, graphics are all superb.

On a side note: I'm a bit stuck. Once you use the girl actor. Auria is her name I think. I can't find the next place to go! I tried searching the whole town but failed. The doors keep on saying either "Not on Demo" or some weird storY that she remembers. (SOme of the stories were quite funny though). Care to help out?

[Sailerius]

I've tried out the demo.

Here's my comments so far:
- The music is great. Kudos for not putting RTP music.
- I like your custom sprites. They blend quite well with the tilesets and they seem original.
- The mapping of the game is quite decent. Things are placed appropriately. It is obvious that there has been thought in the process of map making.
- ONce again, Kudos for modified RTP tilesets.
- I was a bit shock when there were DUB voices for the characters. I was impressed actually since it was pulled of very well.
- The battle system is quite confusing. Although it seems turn based, it acts as if it's an active time battle. That's not the bad part. The worse part is that when the enemy gets a chance to attack, my command window gets interrupted and I have to re-select my command. Eg: Say for example I'm using Actor 3's command window. Once of of the enemy attacks, the command window gets disrupted and i return to Actor 1's command window.
- Comment on battle system again: I didn't like how skills were overpowered while the regular attack of the actors were very much inferior.
Nevertheless, excluding the battle system, I'm very impressed with your game. The presentation, mapping, scripting, graphics are all superb.

On a side note: I'm a bit stuck. Once you use the girl actor. Auria is her name I think. I can't find the next place to go! I tried searching the whole town but failed. The doors keep on saying either "Not on Demo" or some weird storY that she remembers. (SOme of the stories were quite funny though). Care to help out?

Thanks for your response, and for the compliments. If you liked the voice acting thus far, you're in for a treat in the full version when you meet the whole cast.

I'm aware of the issue about the battle system interrupting your commands, which I'm trying to work on. I used Minkoff's sideview battler system and have been using my limited scripting knowledge to edit it into what I want, so it's been a struggle.

Regarding the power of skills, you won't see that past the intro in Kinthrope. Since you can't access the menu, you don't realize that Vastale is level 25. The guards are level 5. The maximum level in the game is 30. The intro was designed to throw you into the battle system so you get a feel for it before you get to the real battles later on.

Once you get Auria, you need to go to the neighborhood of Fallston to go shopping. Go to the cemetary, which is along the northernmost street, and take the left path up. There's a sign there that says 'Fallston.' Hope that helps. ^^

[jens009]

Thanks for your response, and for the compliments. If you liked the voice acting thus far, you're in for a treat in the full version when you meet the whole cast.

Oh that's amazing! I can't wait to hear other people's voices. ;-]

I'm aware of the issue about the battle system interrupting your commands, which I'm trying to work on. I used Minkoff's sideview battler system and have been using my limited scripting knowledge to edit it into what I want, so it's been a struggle.

I may be able to help out since I use minkoff's side view battle system. May I ask though. Are you using RTAB? It seems like it. If you are, try switching around the scripts. Ie: Put Minkoff's script before RTAB or RTAB before Minkoff's script. I know it sounds crazy but it actually helps since XP has a way when processing the script editor.
If this still doesn't help, I'll try to figure out other solutions for you. Meaning I would need to know the current battle system you are using. If you made a custom battle system(Which might be exclusive for your own game), I might not be able to help. However, if you are using RTAB and minkoff, I might offer some assistance.

Regarding the power of skills, you won't see that past the intro in Kinthrope. Since you can't access the menu, you don't realize that Vastale is level 25. The guards are level 5. The maximum level in the game is 30. The intro was designed to throw you into the battle system so you get a feel for it before you get to the real battles later on.

Ah, I see. I knew that they were supposed to be over powered. What I just want to comment on was that each actor's attack is as weak as the guards. I'm not entirely sure if that was your motive.

Once you get Auria, you need to go to the neighborhood of Fallston to go shopping. Go to the cemetary, which is along the northernmost street, and take the left path up. There's a sign there that says 'Fallston.' Hope that helps. ^^

I'll try this out right now.

Oh I noticed a passability mapping error: The chimneys of the houses blocks the player's path. So everytime there's a small chimney, I go around to avoid it.

[darkyoshi]

You've got a very nice presentation here, your main post shows that too.
The voice acting isn't too bad, I liked most of it. Some of it, they just seemed to be emotionless, though it could be me being too picky.

The command interruption has already been touched on. I hope you find a solution to that. I really enjoyed the atmosphere in the beginning and gave me a nice idea of how that place felt. Your effects were nice too.

My only real complaints is the text appears too slow, I dreaded checking anything like a door for it seemed to take forever. It's fine during cut-scenes and especially when you've got voice acting going on. I would suggest speeding up the text for normal npcs, signs, and various things that you can check. Also I noticed I could walk through benches in the town.

Keep it going, it's going great, I look forward to more from you.

This post has been edited by darkyoshi: Jan 3 2008, 09:14 PM

[Sailerius]

I may be able to help out since I use minkoff's side view battle system. May I ask though. Are you using RTAB? It seems like it. If you are, try switching around the scripts. Ie: Put Minkoff's script before RTAB or RTAB before Minkoff's script. I know it sounds crazy but it actually helps since XP has a way when processing the script editor.
If this still doesn't help, I'll try to figure out other solutions for you. Meaning I would need to know the current battle system you are using. If you made a custom battle system(Which might be exclusive for your own game), I might not be able to help. However, if you are using RTAB and minkoff, I might offer some assistance.

I'm not using the RTAB, actually. I'm using the Fomar Action Cost Battle version, which allows you to attack indefinitely as long as you have enough SP to do so. I'll give your suggestion a try and see what happens.

You've got a very nice presentation here, your main post shows that too.
The voice acting isn't too bad, I liked most of it. Some of it, they just seemed to be emotionless, though it could be me being too picky.

The command interruption has already been touched on. I hope you find a solution to that. I really enjoyed the atmosphere in the beginning and gave me a nice idea of how that place felt. Your effects were nice too.

My only real complaints is the text appears too slow, I dreaded checking anything like a door for it seemed to take forever. It's fine during cut-scenes and especially when you've got voice acting going on. I would suggest speeding up the text for normal npcs, signs, and various things that you can check. Also I noticed I could walk through benches in the town.

Keep it going, it's going great, I look forward to more from you.

Thanks! It was actually my intention that text skip was enabled outside of cutscenes, but I forgot to do that. >_< I'm actually finding a few bugs like that (including the aforementioned battle problems) so I might have to release a revised demo.

[Sailerius]

We got a lovely new piece of fanart, this one of Serijala.

[jens009]

Nice artwork! Who drew it? (Just wondering since it said fanart)

[Sailerius]

Her deviantart page is here:
http://lucygray.deviantart.com

[Berzelius]

hey gratz for ur great work.
I cant wit for see ur project complete.
plz sent my ur game when u complete it...

[lahandi]

Wow, you must be put lots of time & effort in this. ... I'm interested with the teaser... I'm downloading it.

[elemmiire]

Just wanted to let you know I really enjoyed this demo. ^^
It shows that you've put lots of time and effort effort into this, and I like your ability to pay attention to details.
I agree with some on the fact that the battle system can be a bit confusing at first, but it didn't really bug me.
And I must admit that I might be developing some fangirl-ism for Weapon ^^;
I'm really looking for ward to any future releases!

[Sailerius]

Just wanted to let you know I really enjoyed this demo. ^^
It shows that you've put lots of time and effort effort into this, and I like your ability to pay attention to details.
I agree with some on the fact that the battle system can be a bit confusing at first, but it didn't really bug me.
And I must admit that I might be developing some fangirl-ism for Weapon ^^;
I'm really looking for ward to any future releases!

Thanks for the kind words! The 'finalized' demo is still under development but should be out within the month (or so I hope!). As I might have mentioned before, the battle system is seeing a complete overhaul and should be a lot more newbie-friendly this time around. And don't worry, Weapon isn't going anywhere... or maybe that means you should worry.

[Ankh]

Wow. It looks great so far. I've only gotten to the part where you first take control of Auria(?). Mostly cause it's 4:30 AM and I want to sleep.
But everything I've seen is great so far, except, of course, for the battle system. And, I'm not sure if this is actually a problem or not, but I could only seem to control Vastale(?) in battle. Maybe I just didn't scroll down to the others or what. Not that I needed them, considering Vastale was able to handle everything.
On another note, I forgot to install the font, so all the dialog was confusing for awhile. Until I finally remembered I had to install it... >>

EDIT: Well, I got a bit further, but I'm not really sure where to go next, or if there even is a place to go next. I got the groceries and her dad's gift, but can you even go to the cafe yet? It doesn't look like it. Also, is there anything else you have to do? I can't remember all the things Auria listed at the beginning...
Also, I like how she reacts to the "Not in Demo" signs. And the voice acting sounded okay, but kinda...erm... like it was coming through a radio. Might've just been my headphone jack. I've been having problems with it.
Anyways, it was fun. And it was a nice touch adding the street signs. I haven't seen a lot of those in RPGs. Along with how all the people know Auria's supposed to be in school. Heh.

This post has been edited by Ankh: Feb 20 2008, 11:29 AM