Vindication Options

[LockeZ]

This game was posted on the main site more than a month ago, but I am posting it in the forums in hopes of getting more feedback.

Main page - Download

Vindication is a traditional RPG created for Windows in RPG Maker 2003 over the course of more than five years. It uses a real-time battle system similar to Final Fantasy games from the SNES and PSX eras. The game is about 15-20 hours long and features several side-quests and multiple difficulty settings, with eight major playable characters.

Vindication is a constant barrage of off-the-wall comedy; a game where eccentric characters encounter absurd situations non-stop. The humor assaults the player at full-speed as the characters are assaulted by 80s style robots from the future, struck by meteors, and forced to take pity on villains who try their best to be evil but fail miserably. But in its more serious moments, Vindication is primarily the story of one man, James Clyde. His quest for revenge against those who have wronged him rules his life, but begins to conflict with his desire to protect his daughter, while a force capable of destroying the world is left unchecked, even encouraged. It is an epic tragedy hidden within a whirlwind of wacky hijinks and terrible puns.

While unarguably a story-based game, Vindication also utilizes gameplay concepts in unusual ways to create a unique and interesting game that is challenging and rewarding. Each character has unique abilities and requires different strategies. Constant party changes and splits keep you on your toes and require you to come up with new battle strategies constantly, while still rewarding you for developing your team members and building your strength. On the harder difficulty setting, the game plays almost like a survival horror game, with very limited resources and no way to replenish them, forcing you to manage your items wisely in order to survive the dungeons and defeat the bosses, which are stronger and faster than usual.

[Show/Hide] Partial list of characters

James Clyde
Age: 31
Height: 5' 8" (6' 11" with hair)
Class: Samurai
A hot-headed individual with a large sword. He firmly believes in acting before thinking, and refuses to take anyone's help or advice. Quite a martial arts expert, he leads a one-man rebellion against Justin's Empire for the atrocities committed by Lord Dick Tator, the previous emperor. 10 years ago, Lord Dick Tator slaughtered James's wife just to show how evil he was. James now turns his wrath towards Lord Justin, the son of Lord Dick Tator and the current emperor. But there's not much income in the rebel business, so he teaches martial arts to children and does a number of other odd jobs whenever he can.


Cole Jesiah
Age: 30
Height: 6' 4"
Class: Blue Mage
History teacher in the town of Hernia. A brilliant man despite being James's friend. His clothes and hair are popular with the local kids. He and James grew up together, and are close friends. While Cole has no personal vendetta against Justin's Empire, he tries to support James in his ongoing fight. Cole's analytical mind clashes with James's tendency to tackle every problem head-on with brute force, but he is a loyal friend who does his best to keep James out of trouble.


Ginny Clyde
Age: 12
Height: 4' 7"
Class: Samurai
The twelve-year-old daughter of James. She is every bit as reckless and violent as her father. She stays at home while James goes on adventures. She is very much like James in many ways, except smaller and more female. She too wishes vengeance on Justin's Empire, but not as strongly, because she was only two when her mother died. Besides, it's not as if she gets to fight alongside James. She just sits at home and plays video games all day.


Lord Justin
Age: 26
Height: 5' 8"
Class: Thief (Well, he's a politician, what did you expect?)
The son of Lord Dick Tator and the current emperor of the world. He tries to be incredibly evil, but does a lousy job of it. His given name at birth was Justin Tator, but he had it changed to just Lord Justin because people called him Tator Tot. He rules from his capital city of Regala, but his iron fist is a bit rusty. As the son of the the previous emperor Dick Tator, Lord Justin is James's main target in his quest to avenge his wife. His evilness cannot be stressed enough. He is evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil *takes a breath* evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evilevil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And besides that, he is not a good guy.

[Show/Hide] Credits

Designer: Ben McAlpin
Early Prototype Story Design: Matt Mazzarella
Resource Rips: Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy 4 through 9, Final Fantasy Tactics, Suikoden, Suikoden 2, Lufia 2, Saga Frontier, Xenogears, Wild ARMs, Wild ARMs 2, Rudra no Hihō, Star Ocean, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Star Wars: A New Hope, Dragon Ball Z, Two-Mix
Various uncredited resources taken from: Don Miguel's Site, Charas RPG Maker Resources, RPGamer

Main page - Download

This post has been edited by LockeZ: Mar 10 2010, 06:15 PM

[GalzaRPG]

Sounds a lot like the way my game is turning out in some cases.. I'll have to give this a try.

[gamezerstudios]

cool game.

[GalzaRPG]

hah.. nope, nothin at all like my game. Kind of glad actually.

Pretty nice, the mapping is a little bland in some places but the story is hardly serious. I totally read Justin as "Dr Evil" .. if you want to play a game that doesn't take itself seriously, this is a pretty good bet. It's definetly more on the challenging side of game play than a simple button masher. There's some pretty good features in here like the FF6 Split Party thing.. so it's not entirely noobish.

I don't really think the description provided really gives to the true nature of the game though.. I played like 3 missions before I took a break and there really wasn't so much a mention of "revenge" coming out of James mouth, though it's implied somewhat. It's almost like they took the action hero thing to a comedic level with that guy, and I rather like it. The tutorials are a little redundant in some places, when you get to the camp after the jail, we're already well aware of what save points look like and what the shops and stuff are from the starting town. We've used them a lot in the jail anyway.. so stopping everything to tell us now is kind of .. yeah redundant.

[LockeZ]

I have updated my game today with some changes. A number of bugs were fixed based on user feedback, some maps were improved, and I rewrote a bit of the dialogue as well as some of the tutorials.

If anyone else finds any bugs, please notify me! I think I've fixed them all, but people keep finding more. I'm also very anxious for any more feedback or advice.

[Rob_Riv]

You need some detailed information on these eccentric characters, as well as a list of features and credits.

[LockeZ]

You need some detailed information on these eccentric characters, as well as a list of features and credits.

There's a list of major features right there in the third paragraph. What more do you want me to add? I don't think anyone really decides to play a game based on the fact that it has a minimap on the world map and an exponential XP scale, but I suppose I can fill the description with that sort of spam if you honestly think it would be helpful.

And any character descriptions would be spoilers, so obviously I can't really say much more than I already did. The best way to learn about the story is to play the game! No commerical trailer ever gives more than a paragraph worth of plot teasers, if that.

I can oblige you on the credits though! In fact, I have updated the credits in the game itself, too. They now match the newer, more complete credits which I've added to the post above.

This post has been edited by LockeZ: Mar 1 2010, 05:11 PM

[Rob_Riv]

I see the paragraph, it's not a list of features really, but I guess it'll do. It's not about what I think would be helpful nor is it about including "the description with that sort of spam", it's just about complying with the rules of the forum.

Any character descriptions would be spoilers? Names, brief background, age, battle classes... You can't reveal any of these? As some information on your characters really is needed for this section of the forum.

This post has been edited by Rob_Riv: Mar 2 2010, 09:29 AM

[LockeZ]

Hmm, I see. I thought the description of the main character would be enough, but I guess not. I'll add the secondary main character and the villain, at least, later today. Maybe some others. I kind of don't like doing so, as I feel that I already give too much away in the description above. But, rules are rules.

I'm not sure what other sorts of features you think should be mentioned, besides what I already wrote. The rules just says "Features" and nothing more, it gives no definition as to what is and isn't a feature. I assume the mods and oldbies have some sort of consensus on what should be in the features section though, from what you've said. Please advise? I would like to do whatever I can to make my description be ideal.

Hopefully the extremely silly credits are not a problem. The game was made entirely by me, except for the title screen, which was drawn by one of the people I gave special thanks to. Which is why it took since 2003 to finish. So unless you want a list of the SNES and PSX games that I ripped music and graphics from, I think the credits are pointless here.

This post has been edited by LockeZ: Mar 2 2010, 11:06 AM

[Rob_Riv]

Usually a thread is seperated into expandable sections, with a section for each requirement; Story, Characters, Features, Screenshots, Credits. Features is just what makes your game so different from everyone else's. A typical list might read "15 hours of gameplay, 20 unique classes, OST"

Yeah, you have to credit where all music and graphics came from, I apologise if I wasn't clear enough before. It's just so someone looking at the thread can know who made the resources. Everything that isn't RTP or created by you needs to be credited.

[LockeZ]

I don't like lists, they're bland and unenticing. I guess I'll leave the features in paragraph form since I have all the info present already.

I'm really not enthusiastic to give you a list of 30+ commercial games that I ripped music and graphics from. Very few if any of the other games on this board have that kind of detailed credits. I don't even remember them all. In fact, I never even knew some of them to begin with, since they were ripped by anonymous and uploaded to Don Miguel's resources section with such detailed names as "townset3.png".

I can add Anonymous to the credits if you like. Would that sufficiently cover all the remaining gaps?

[Rob_Riv]

I'm really not enthusiastic to give you a list of 30+ commercial games that I ripped music and graphics from. Very few if any of the other games on this board have that kind of detailed credits. I don't even remember them all. In fact, I never even knew some of them to begin with, since they were ripped by anonymous and uploaded to Don Miguel's resources section with such detailed names as "townset3.png".

Very few games have have ripped off 30+ commerical games, that's probably why. If you don't know who they were by, but were from a specific resource section, you are best off crediting that, as it's better than nothing. A credit list, as stated in the rules, is essential though. You need to credit all of the 30+ games if you used resources from them, obviously you should put them in a spoiler tag to reduce space to a minimum.

[LockeZ]

Well, large parts of this game were created more than five years ago, but I did my best with the credits! There are a couple musical tracks I honestly don't recognize. :/

How it's even possible for there to be music in the game that I don't recognize is totally beyond me. Don't even ask. It's hurting my head just thinking about it. I can only assume they were just featured on RPGamer one day, back when RPGamer was worth reading.

[7evenstitch]

I'm playing your game right now, and enjoying it. I have a slight problem though.. I get sound effects, but no music. Is
there a way to fix that? I've installed it twice, but the music still won't play. I like the game, but without the music in the
background, it just seems.. silent. I tried opening the game with RM2K3, but you've locked it so I can't look at the internal
settings.

[LockeZ]

I'm playing your game right now, and enjoying it. I have a slight problem though.. I get sound effects, but no music. Is
there a way to fix that? I've installed it twice, but the music still won't play. I like the game, but without the music in the
background, it just seems.. silent. I tried opening the game with RM2K3, but you've locked it so I can't look at the internal
settings.

First I've heard of this problem. Check your Windows volume settings. Maybe you have midi volume turned all the way down?

The game uses midi music because I am too lazy to bother finding MP3s of all the songs I use, and too dumb to have started with MP3s in the first place. In my defense, MP3s would add like 200 MB to the download. Would people prefer I change the game to use all MP3s?

The game shouldn't actually be locked, though. I don't think it's even possible to lock RM2K3 games anyway. And even if it is possible, I didn't do it.

[LockeZ]

This is just an update to point out that a lot of miscellaneous changes have been made to the game since the last post.

Most notably, I think I fixed the font problem once and for all. The font patch should no longer be necessary.

The first few dungeons of the game were also made to be quite a bit less tedious and hellish. There are more varied enemies, fewer repetitous battles, a lower encounter rate, a shop inside the first dungeon (unless you're on hard mode), better mapping on a few maps, a couple more puzzles to make up for the lower encounter rate, a redone intro scene, etc etc.

If anyone has any additional suggestions, please let me know!