October 1 2011
Brand new revamped version now available!
What's new?


This game features 100% original music (including Victory, Battle, Item, and Inn themes) written by me and my band done in an Indie Rock style.
And an extremely unique and unconventional story (once you get into it).


Story



Characters


Screen Shots



Features
* This game features 100% original music (yes, including Victory, Battle, Item, and Inn themes) written by me and my band in an Indie Rock style. And an extremely unique and unconventional story (once you get into it).
* Over 20 hours of gameplay!

Download[/u]
NEW Download of the Complete Game! (08.16.11):
Complete Game

Credits
* Enu and Mr. Bubbles for the Tankentai Sideview Battle System
* Star for ATB
* 2Chan for Mode7 VX
* Kylock for Light Effects VX
* And many, many more all listed in the opening credits.

Have fun!

Looking at the maps, I think that they need a little work,

The story seems alright, hopefully the plot twists don't leave any plot holes, but hey, I'll have to find out for myself.

I'll play the demo in a bit and tell you what I think.


See ya soon, I guess.

-EDIT-
Woah, 83MB for a demo? O_O
Is it incredibly long or have you injected it with mp3s?

Yes, it is a bit large of a file. The game is pretty long 30-50 Hours long. And even though it's only the demo, all of the actual game so far is in there. But the demo cuts you off at the third-way through mark.

Also, yes, all of the music is MP3s of music written by me and my band. All of the music is 100% original.

Boasting 50 hours you say? I'll have to see it to believe it Looking forward to the music side. 100% custom is worth the hefty Download size.

I'll give your Demo a run through and post up a rittle' review some time soon.

wow sounds like you've worked quite some time on your game, gotta give you ups for working that hard. do you have a link for your music?

The whole game is in there?
Bit confused as to why you didn't copy+paste all the maps from the demo into a new project to cut size down, ah well, I'll give it a try.

harryb412: That's a good question. The answer is that I was too lazy. I probably should have though . . . Sorry.

DJenerationT: Well, I said 30-50 hours depending on the player and how thouroughly you search. There are many out of the way secrets and several entirely optional "dungeons" hidden for acquiring rare stuff.

dsoulja85: Quite a bit of the music is already up on my band's myspace: http://myspace.com/thececils
Funny enough, we'd recorded most of the music a year or so ago, but when I was putting together this game back in June, I decided to use the music we'd already recorded for our EP and then have us record the rest of the games music specially. We just finished a new Victory and Battle theme that aren't in the demo (instead are the midis of different ideas I'd had).

As for how long I've been working on the game . . . I started in June. I did most of the game in June and July, but had to take a break from it for much of August and September. The game was about 80% done at the end of July when I had to stop working on it. That being said, I should mention that the plot for most of the game had already been conceived years and years ago as a manuscript. So it's not as if I had to start from scratch in June or anything. But I've had to adapt the plot fairly dramatically away from its source matterial to make it interesting as a game.

Well I played the demo and the Storyline seems good in the long run but it takes a while to pick up. Understanding that this is a game written around a book it might be a good idea to add a more cut scene like approach to communicate the story better than conversational dialogue.
I felt a lot of parts I was lost at what exactly was going on even after they talked about it.

This was especially the case when midway after you leave the bridge and find the Wizard you're asked to do one thing that would lead to opening this which would lead to entering this etc. And after he said it once I was again lost at what to do. It'd be great if you made the party recap and help explain the objectives linking it with how the storyline should follow.

In the demo I ended up In the Runic Tower after just managing to beating the boss and getting lost at the top and wondering If I would have to go all the way down, through the underground and back in the garden or there was something support to happen at the top. I clocked 55mins from start to where I ended up in the tower.

The World map maze is quite a good idea but I'd drop the encounter rate a bit. It felt like it was taking me far too long to get anywhere on the map.
when every 5 steps I triggered another battle. In retrospect it was worth it as the Dungeon Boss was a pain to kill though.

The mapping was good in the villages. A lot of the houses were fine though a bit stretched in terms of size of the insides. Also one house in Grune Town with an old lady with plants all around the side froze the character and menu which was a bit strange. Another weird glitch to which you might of noticed was with the events following the sides of the screen. Which last time it happened to me was because of a lag reducing script. This got very strange in the farm villages with lots of moving events. And the sides of my screen were just littered with animals, doors and chests.

The battling was fine, it wasn't super hard and it wasn't really easy as the monsters progressed as the game went on. I'd definitely give Firu some better purpose in battles as he was next to useless during boss fights.

The strongest part was the music by far. The Soundtrack is great, the variety of music fits the mood well instead of the happy go lucky RTP music.

That's all I can think of at the moment to review the demo. I'm sure I haven't done it all. Just some guidance what to do next would be great.

DJT: Thanks for the awesome feedback! That is the kind of stuff I've been looking for!
I will take the cut scene notion to heart and at least have the objectives recapped and a little more spelled out. Sorry about that. I've been living with this story for a decade . . . so I'm not sure what needs more or less explaining at times.

Sorry about the Runic Tower glitch . . yes, the Wizard Yasian was supposed to warp you back outside. I'll fix that. yikes!

It looks like I didn't set up the lag reduction script right. I'll tinker with that. Oops.

Sorry Sylear Firu was pretty useless. I'll tinker with him to make him more interesting. I was trying to play out the realism of someone who has had no weapons training, but that's just plain stupid if it makes him a boring character to play. I'll fix that.

Thanks for playing. And thanks for your feedback!

First and foremost, don't force full-screen. I've noticed this often with RM games, but fullscreen usually results in bars phasing through the image at times, and your game is no exception to this. If people want to play full screen, they can hit Alt+Enter.

Secondly, the BGM is too loud; it's drowning out the sound effects. There's also some clipping where the song hits a its high peak. Either adjust the volume in your audio editing program, or—if that clipping is intentional—lower the volume when setting the BGM.

No introduction? Just BAM! thrown right into the game? At least some kind of introduction—like about this prophoecy that someone will appear during the hour of need—would be nice.

You can select "Nevermind" from the list of choices right away, rather than having to go through the questions first. Which leads to Tyrin remarking if he got here while sleeping, he must still be sleeping. Howm does he know he arrived while sleeping if he never asked how he got here? Change it up somehow so you have to ask the questions before getting the forth option.

"I have something to show you. Not THAT you perv." Yeah, I wasn't thinking about that, and I highly doubt Tyrin was, either; he seems too concerned trying to figure out where he is.

Not to mention I was able to go downstairs and continue on with the game (didn't even need to talk to Mia) before going upstairs to get my equipment. And even when I did go to the third floor, I went straight to the fouth floor before being told to. And then I restarted the game and discovered I didn't even need to talk to Mia on the second floor where I started. It's funny to have Mia in my party from the fouth floor and then talk to her on the second.

Do something about those stairs teleporting you face-first into walls, please. You've left directional facing on RETAIN rather than facing away from the walls. Not to mention on the lower levels, they're leading into the walls, while the upper levels are facing away from the walls (in other words, the staircase-in and staircase-out are facing opposite directions).

Losing to Mia results in a Game Over? What the hell? Pretty harsh for a tutorial boss, don't you think?

So, I finally get to the castle, and I enter it sideways. And I'm teleported into the entrance, sideways. You really need to work on the transfer points. And on that note, you should also place the transfer-to location one tile in front of another transfer-from location. So that way people can just turn around and go back if they don't want to be here, instead of having to move forward and then turn around.

While I was in the castle, a ghost treasure chest started stalking me.



And then some ghost lamps started following me.



And then all sorts of ghosts started chasing me!



Typing of the lamps, when I hit the action button when facing a one, it sorta dances. I'm thinking you don't have the "Direction Fix" enabled, and so the lamp is trying to turn to face me whenever I hit the action button, but you don't have anything programmed for it to do. So it just dances and stuff.

I noticed the ghost phenomenon is somehow linked to events, and for whatever reason, the events begin chasing me at the edges of the screen (they disappear after a battle, though). And then I also noticed that the ghost events will also sort "jump into place" when their location comes into frame. Really bizarre stuff.

By the way, you're trying to make a vertical pillar using the top halves of pillars. That doesn't work, because they have a passability.



You have two locked doors. One reads "Locked" and the other reads "LOCKED." Please have some consistency.

If I was the Slime Lord, I would be very pissed off if my underlings ran away from me.

I'm interested to know what dirty magazines from our world are doing in this alternative world, and why Mia knows what Playboy is and/or why she would be interested in Playgirl if she's got a problem with perverts. I'm starting to get the idea that "Familiar of Zero" has influenced this game (as if the earlier part about a hero with no prior training of swords would be able to freely wield weapons wasn't already a hint).

I can talk to the Prince before talking to his father. I guess that's not necessarily wrong... though it is strange.

Your rounded doors open up into tunnels. I mean, they have the little side-bricks around the arch of the tunnel. So, your door is opening up into a hole that's smaller than the door size.

Your little girl who wants to go see the treasure mountain seems to be playing a game of red light/green light. And I applaud her to be keeping balance on one foot.

I can walk all over the upper half of Grune Town on the overworld map? Must make the peasants in that part of the town frightened to have their homes stomped on by a giant.

The girl explaining Grune Day and free Grunes loses her face.

And the game froze when I went into the Granny's house with a bunch of flowers. And I decided that was enough of the game for now.

Otaku Son: Thanks so much for your bug catches and stuff!

Because of how I set up an anti-lag script, it caused a whole bunch of weird issues with events going to strange places on maps. I'll get a new demo up with that fixed. But first I'll take care of some of those stupid things you found. Good point about talking to Mia on each floor. I'll simplify it and put all her stuff in one place.


I can see how that would be annoying. I'll remove it.

"Secondly, the BGM is too loud; it's drowning out the sound effects."
Really? I find the oposite to be the case on my end. I find that the sound effects are usually too loud and grating and the music seems too quiet. Any songs in particular that struck you as overly loud? Especially, which song had clipping? That's no good.

"No introduction? Just BAM! thrown right into the game? At least some kind of introduction—like about this prophoecy that someone will appear during the hour of need—would be nice."
There is a title song where I plan on fading in and out still shots from the game with simple sentences setting up the mood . . . but no actual introduction per se. The Prophecy of the Prince doesn't really have much to do with the game (despite how it seems in the first part of the game).


Yikes. I'll tinker with it so that even if you don't ask the questions and say "Nevermind" it will still make sense.


A very good point, but maybe Mia just assumed that Tyrin was having dirty thoughts.

"Not to mention I was able to go downstairs and continue on with the game (didn't even need to talk to Mia) before going upstairs to get my equipment."

Very good point. Instead I'll have the dialogue start immediately on Tyrin's awaking

"Do something about those stairs teleporting you face-first into walls, please."
Very good point. I was VERY sloppy with that in the beginning of the game and forgot. Thanks for reminding me. I'll fix all those.

"Not to mention on the lower levels, they're leading into the walls, while the upper levels are facing away from the walls (in other words, the staircase-in and staircase-out are facing opposite directions)."
I get what you're saying, but to do it otherwise would look weird to me. If a stair's first step was on the other side (not next to you, but up against a wall) . . . that would just be weird.

"Losing to Mia results in a Game Over? What the hell? Pretty harsh for a tutorial boss, don't you think?"
Good point. I'll make it continuable even if defeated.

"While I was in the castle, a ghost treasure chest started stalking me."
Eek! Scary! I think I just fixed that with how I changed the anti-lag script to work. I'll make sure before posting my next demo.

"Typing of the lamps, when I hit the action button when facing a one, it sorta dances. I'm thinking you don't have the "Direction Fix" enabled,"
Ah! Nope! I didn't know about that. I'm still fairly n00bish at RPGMaker on some things. I'll fix those. Yikes . . . so many lamps in the game to fix.

"By the way, you're trying to make a vertical pillar using the top halves of pillars. That doesn't work, because they have a passability."
Would you believe they're secret passages? Nope? Damn. I'll have to fix them. Duh, why I didn't realize that astounds me.

"You have two locked doors. One reads "Locked" and the other reads "LOCKED." Please have some consistency."
That's the exact sort of nitpick-y stuff I love! I'll fix it.

"I'm interested to know what dirty magazines from our world are doing in this alternative world, and why Mia knows what Playboy is and/or why she would be interested in Playgirl if she's got a problem with perverts."
Very good questions. And, actually, the answers are forthcoming (about two thirds into the game). And that's not all. Wait until Baeon starts talking about cars and light bulbs . . .


I've never heard of it. But you made me curious and I googled it. It looks interesting. But I'm not really a fan of much Anime (except Ghibli/Miyazaki). The only influence I can think of would maybe be Piers Anthony's Xanth books . . . but only very, very vaguely.

"I can talk to the Prince before talking to his father. I guess that's not necessarily wrong... though it is strange."
I like to give players the options to NOT do stuff. I don't like forcing players into having to do simple stuff . . . so long as the fact that they haven't done said thing or spoken to said person doesn't contradict anything later.

"Your rounded doors open up into tunnels."
Wow, I totally forgot about that. Day one of my RPG Maker mistakes I STILL haven't fixed. Time to fix time.

"Your little girl who wants to go see the treasure mountain seems to be playing a game of red light/green light. And I applaud her to be keeping balance on one foot."
Haha, funny! Gotta fix that!


Scary! But I see what ya mean. Fixed it. Thanks!


Yes, sorry. There's an Auto-Run in there I had forgotten to turn off. I've fixed it since, but haven't posted a new demo with the fix.

Thanks so, so much! I'll have a new demo up within a week with all those fixes.

For the music tracks I found to be too loud, one was the starting tower, and the other was the castle. And the castle was actually the one with the clipping.

I don't know if you've got a surround-sound system while I've only got a stereo system, but my general guideline is whenever I make a "Transfer Player" and leave the move sound effect to default audio (80%), if I can't hear that sound over the music, then the music is too loud. That's what I use for my guideline.

Ah, Piers Anthony. I read only two of his books, and from I understand, one of the two wasn't his original work (Through the Ice), which I liked better than the other one of his I'd read (Color of Her Panties).

But yeah, like I wrote about the Prince and King. It's not wrong, just sorta strange. And considering Mia at the start of the game, I wondered if it just might be a glitch.

Thanks! I'll drop the volume on those down a bit. 20% or so.


Through the Ice was written by a high school student who had died; he was a fan of Piers' and so his family asked Piers to edit and finish the manuscript. I agree, it is a good book. The Color of Her Panties is part of the Xanth series which I was a HUGE fan of when I was a kid. I've outgrown it a bit, but I still enjoy it.

Thanks to all of your awesome suggestions, I've fixed all those bugs and design flaws and now have a new version of the demo up. I changed the beginning a little bit to be a bit more dramatic.

According to the Author's Note at the end of Through the Ice, it was actually the kid's friends who submitted what was then the first four chapters (though, Piers Anthony later inserted an additional chapter amongst those four, so it became four of the first five chapters). But, this thread isn't about Piers Anthony; it's about your game.

I'll download the new demo next time I'm at the library, which should be Wednesday. Feel free to give my a demo a try in the meantime, or wait until Wednesday for my new demo.

Well, it's getting better. Still got a couple kinks to work out.

At least it's not Game Over when you lose to Mia, but it's still a bit strange. "Oh, good work! I got to see your Swordcraft skills in action, even though you frickin' suck against a mage and didn't even use your Swordcraft skills!" I was thinking something along the lines of if you lose, maybe she's like, "I don't think you were quite prepared, were you? Let me know when you want to try again."

On that note, you also need to do something about Tyrin's status when you lose. Either do a "Remove State: Death" or a "Recover All" (I recommended "Remove State: Death"). Because, right now, he still has 0 HP after the battle.

Ghost are taken care of. Jumping lamps are taken care of. But the vertical pillar towers are still bugged. By the way, if Tyrin can already equip two swords, is there really any reason to give him Dual Attack? And I think "Leg Sweep" should be ineffective against flying enemies (although, I find it interesting that a knight in armor would be able to perform a leg sweep in the first place).

I noticed that when we foguth the boss spider, the regular battle music played. But then after that, all the regular battles played the boss music.

The girl in Grodon Village who wants to see the mountain is still a bit buggy. But at least the round doors are fixed.

The Butler in the large house in Grune Village says, "I appologize." Only one "p" in "apologize"/"apology."

Also, now that you've decided to go with a Save Point saving system, you really should make sure there's at least one save point in every town. Probably in the rooms of the inns. Because I got my ass kicked by that ogre, and didn't feel like trekking through the hedge maze again. Which brings up another issue: Baeon's gauge is so incredibly slow, I couldn't get off enough heals to keep the party alive against the ogre's all-attack.

Aaaaaah. Totally. I can't believe I missed that. Haha.


Duh. Great point. I'll yank that from him. I added that back when he could only use one sword . . . before I remembered that in the stories my friend and I made up he always used two.


Exactly. He shouldn't have that skill. Oops!


Grr. I missed that one somehow. Thanks for pointing that out.


Weird! I thought I fixed her. Grrr. I'll go look at her again.


Strange . . . I thought I set it up so that the overworld and towns were free-save. I'll have to look at that.


I like that idea better. I'll just make saving allowable in Inns rather than the whole town.


Uh oh. I don't know how to speed up an actor's gauge. If the Ogre was too difficult because of his all-attack, maybe I'll just weaken that attack. Or weaken the ogre's attacks in general.

Thanks for the great feedback! You're awesome opossum!

I haven't tinkered with Takentai myself, so I don't know how battle guages work in that system, but doesn't it have some relevancy to a character's AGI stat? The ogre's all-attack would be no problem if I could get off Baeon's all-heal fast enough to counter it, rather than getting slammed two or three times in a row. It does a pretty balanced rate of damage, and even though it was stronger than the other two bosses, I didn't feel I was getting cheated except for not being able to get myself healed.

I honestly have NO idea, but I will look into it rather than just smurfing the Ogre. AGI . . . I don't even know what that means, but I'll go look into it.

I'm not writing this to be rude, but, since you don't know what AGI means, I'm sorta curious: are you a RPG Maker newbie? I'm just curious how someone with "RM Skill: Skilled" doesn't know what AGI is.

Haha! Great question! Yes, total newbie to RPG Maker. I just picked it up in . . . June, I think. But I've used a much less user friendly game maker before (Zelda Classic) so I'm not totally new to the process.

I'm not sure about the "skilled" part except that I think I thought that was in reference to my skill level as a "writer" or whatever I selected my primary forte as.

But, to answer your question, after posting that I didn't know what AGI meant and logging out . . . I realized that of course it meant agility. No idea why I didn't realize that at the moment.

And, yes, it turns out that the ATB system uses AGI to determine the actors speed on their ATB bar. I changed the Ogre's to about half what it was.

On a VERY happy note: I'm DONE mapping out my game! I just finished the last dungeon yesterday. I now have only some dialogue and such connecting the third to last dungeon to the second to last and then the second to last to the last. And the I have to write the epilogue thing.

My game should be done within the week.

However, I still have to get my bandmate to record three last songs for the soundtrack.

UPDATE:
Ask and ye shall receive. I've uploaded a new demo without the RTP that is MUCH smaller. I figure the people on here are going to have RTP and I can just provide the version of the updates the people without RTP separately.
Demo 6.9

I thought RM Skill was relevant to, well, RM skill. And on that note, I think I need to adjust mine up a notch, since I've gotten better with using RMVX.

I'll download your new demo some time today. I got another user's game in queue at the moment.

I finished it!

It's probably about 20-25 hrs of gameplay.

I have to betatest it with a buddy of mine, but please, please, please people play it and send me me info of any bugs you find and I'll include you as a "debugger" in the end credits. I would really appreciate it!

I've already started work on my second game while I'm waiting to play through this one with a friend of mine several hours a week.

I've uploaded a new demo of the complete game just now.

Sorry guys! There was a serious error with that previous demo and because of the holidays I've only JUST had a chance to look into it and fix it (it turns out that because the folder size of the music was so large, it would not allow the game to extract fully. I've converted the MP3s into Oggs and reduced the filesize of the entire game by about half!)

It's all fixed now, and a new demo is ready for download!

Please report any minor (or major!) bugs to me and I'll include your name if you'd like in the end credits.

Thanks!

Actually, I've been meaning to tell you (but with my inability to access the Internet at will), there's a horrible glitch. When I try to extract the game from the .exe, and is started unloading the RTP materials, it gets hung up at the Water animation. I abort the extraction, but the game won't play at all.

I think it would be better to just leave the RTP out, anyway, since a number of us should already have it installed.

Wow, it's been a long while since I've posted here.

I've changed so much since my last demo I don't even know where to begin. The game has vastly improved.

Here's the new demo. You should probably still be able to use your old save file.

Demo 6.6

That doesn't link to a demo at all, it links to "Post 0". I have found the demo link in your original post though.

Is the music in the castle original? It doesn't sound like it.

Hey, doesn't look bad! I'll give it a try

@bastion. Please would you fix the download link in this thread asap. Thank you. DH.

Really? Yes, it's 100% original. Why? Does it remind you of something else?

That being said, I'm replacing both the castle and town themes soon. Being the only midis they sound incongruent with the rest of the soundtrack which is my band recorded.

Also, here is the correct link for the current demo:
http://www.mediafire.com/?1tuj5motynw

I guess it's FFVII music it reminds me of, not sure which track though. Eerily similar though.

Whoa! Are you still including the RTP in the self-extractor? Are you using mp3s instead of oggs? I just... don't remember the game being over 100MB, and my computer I'm using right now tells me it'll be over an hour to download.

You said the castle track? Castle Lorewyn? The first castle?

Funny enough, FFVII is my least fav FF (that I've played, I'm sure I would dislike VIII more) and I never finished it. I'm curious what song of mine you think sounds like a song from it. To be compared with the great Uematsu is an honor!


Yup. Some of the people playing it don't have RTP. I suppose I could upload separate versions without RTP.


Nope. All oggs now.


Once I finished it, it was just over 100MB. It's a huge game. At least in comparison to most peoples here. It has Over 200 maps (and most of those and more than 100 switches. I think it is at least as large as FF1 (which I sort of used as my standard. I made sure to have at least as many towns as FF1 has and at least as many dungeons as FF1 has).


Yikes. When I click to download it, it estimates twenty some minutes.

Well, mind you download estimates have to do with bandwidth, and so where I'm at now probably has a much narrow bandwidth than your computer. Likely, since I am on a public network.

Aside from that, I would recommend that you not make two separate "with RTP / without RTP" versions, but instead, make a non-RTP version and link to Enterbrain's official RTP download. Sorta like how I have my game thread set up (if you want to use that as an example).

The first castle track sounds so familar to me, that's either because it's completely generic or it reminds me of another game, perhaps I'm wrong, but it really does remind me of something. ^^

Hmph.


Well, I've had one person tell me that the melody reminds them of the Legend of Zelda theme, and while I can sort of see it . . . no. But I'm a huge Zelda fan, so I guess accidental inspiration is inevitable. Anyway, since this is one of the last two remaining midi tracks and the rest is my indie rock band, it is going to be replaced in the final version of the game. It just doesn't sit with the rest of the music very well, though it is one of my fav compositions. I'll use it in my next game.

Is it possible to re-upload as the new links are dead. I was playing an older version & wanted to download the new demo. I have been really enjoying it & am looking forward to getting further. Thanks in advance.

Absolutely. The new (FULL COMPLETE GAME!) download is at:
Complete Game

Moving, as requested.

Thank you for posting the complete game. I am really enjoying it & can't wait to get going on it again. Again, many thanks.

My pleasure! I'm glad you're enjoying it!

i'm in the runic tower, i believe i've made it all the way to the top and i came to a room with a chest and a save point.. am i missing something?? i'm not finding any boss or anything and i've been in this tower forever! please help!

The Runic Tower is not so straight forward. There are four elemental Orbs that must be activated to cause the entrance to the very top to become accessible. It sounds like you have more Orbs to activate.

Pretty important update of the download. Someone found a major glitch in Yasian's House.

Here it is:

http://www.mediafire.com/?e33hw0dzn3g

Woah!! four bosses at the top?!?!?! pretty harsh,i keep dying...is there any way to kill them without getting killed first? any small detail wud help but no riddles,k? so um..help?

EDIT: oh well,i passed thanks anyways,so now what happens after i got the runic axe?

I think after you get the Runic Axe Yasian reminds you that your next destination is Mt. Zephyr through the Forbidding Forest.

i wanted to download the game but mediafire said the link was no longer valid. do you have an alternate download link?

Yeah, sorry. There was a game-breaking bug, so I've uploaded a new version:
http://www.mediafire.com/?tkiyxgqxgzd

Thank You.

Everytime I try to extract the game it says extract fail so i cant load the game.

That's very strange. I don't know why that would be, because it extracts for me and the other people playing it . . . odd . . .

Here's an update with a game-breaking bug found and squashed:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ydhohqnnqiz