Summary

An ancient people's history rules modern man of Gaia. An ancient people whom destroyed themselves with a powerful technology; the combining of magic and machine. This blasphemous use of magic strikes fear in the hearts of all people in all lands. The scriptures warn against its destructive properties. Yet, there are those who seek to recover this lost technology, for better or worse, for humanity or war.

Sooo, I posted on this forum before about this game and other things. I'm looking to get some feedback on my demo! Some notes about this release...

1. There are incomplete graphics
2. There may be some bugs I did not notice
3. On the world map, there is a wolf. DON'T FIGHT HIM. He will kick your ass. He shouldn't be there.

You can reach me here about any bugs, or you can leave a comment on AoA's facebook page! (Please like!)

Trailer

Demo v2.3 Link!

Reason: After various beta testers playing through it, there were many game breaking bugs discovered late in the demo. v2.3 will be posted when these bugs have been fixed. If anyone is playing, I'd suggest waiting until this update comes out. Otherwise, if you continue playing, please tell me about any bugs you encounter. Thanks!

Features

1. Adrenaline System (similar to limit break)
2. 11 class skill tree, fully functional with over 60 unlockable skills and an unlockable 12th class.
3. No-random encounters!
4. Up to 10 possible characters.
5. Custom Title Screen
6. Custom Music
7. A different default battle system customized with patches and events.

Screenshots

Characters

Credits

Sorry, one more update and a bump. If anyone's downloaded v2.1, you're going to want to install this newer version. You should be able to copy paste your save file and pick up where you left off without any problem. Sorry for any inconveniences.



Also, I'm hoping people not only play through the game and enjoy it, but report back to me on bugs and issues. I'd like to submit it for review, but only after all the kinks have been worked out.

After a beta tester uncovering an absurd amount of game breaking bugs, I've decided to remove the links to demo v2.2. Version 2.3 will be uploaded after all bugs have been fixed. If you'd like to play the game as a beta tester, send me a pm and I'll send you the download link to 2.2. I'm in need of more beta testers at the moment, so all offers are very helpful!


...I try not to complain about this kind of thing, but no one has any kind of feedback at all? Good or bad or even really bad?

Honestly? Two weeks and no one has anything to say?

Not many people like the rm2k3 custom games. Just saiyan. : /

That's really... weird. Why? What's so bad about rm2k3? The only thing I can imagine that's different besides graphics is that vx and xp have script systems, but either tool is only as good as the user.

Tell you what, I'll play the demo, you check out my shiz.

I actually said last night to myself that if this topic still had no support that I'd take the jump.

So I'll go ahead and get downloading.

Share the love: http://www.rpgrevolution.com/forums/index....showtopic=51319

After playing....

I'll go through the list and then give my general thoughts.

1. Why can't I interact with this rather nice looking world? Man, I sure wish I could learn more about it by doing so.

2. Jake jumps and says there's guards around but I don't see them...how can he see up/down those stairs and I can't?

3. I do like the shock/jump animation though, in fact, the game itself is surprisingly full of movement!

4. If I take too long to move around in the castle...shouldn't I be penalized and be forced to fight some more guards? What happened to the ones chasing me (before the sewer part, that was explained) when I went downstairs?

5. Walking speed is way too fast as I have to keep jerking my fingers to get anywhere in a decent time frame without bumping into stuffs.

6. The cursing is ridiculous, quit it. I don't have an issue with using foul language myself but you're using it way too much and it just comes off as annoying/immature and makes me pissed off that these characters don't know any advanced vocabulary.

7. Don't have Mowser tell me to take a seat and have nothing happen when I do, conveyance, it's an important thing.

8. Oh my, look, a giant wolf thing on the map. Let's go fig- Why the bloody hell is this battle so hard? I noticed the sprite looks like boss material but why the hell show me a first fight opportunity with these new characters and then proceed to throw the middle finger at the player for exploring. It's as if you don't want me exploring the world.

9. Some little girl yells at me to play with her but I never get the option to play with her...Gee, so nice.

10. Why can I stand on chests in Juniper's armory?

11. I'm in an inn, I'm in an inn....Now I'm at a graveyard, talking to someone off screen called Martha, talking about Gambit. Who the hell is Martha, who's Gambit? What the hell is wrong with my walking speed? Oh, I need to go to the mansion now...huh, my walking speed request got fulfilled at least.

12. Oh for the love of my own sexy ass why is the walking speed so slow and now I have to go halfway across the city to the manor? What is going on!?

13. I'll be sure to take to Parry eventually, typo is just outside the mansion.

14. This Seren guy is so very evil, yes he is. Oh, another swear, 'cmon! You're writing is actually above average until another swear covers the text box!

15. My walking speed is way too slow and I give up playing after 30 minutes.

General thoughts:

Story is about these waring city states....okay....These characters have what to do with that plot exactly? I don't care about any of these characters. Actually Jake was starting to be decent, then we switch to Samson and Parry....I hope they all die. I just don't care about the world, the wars, or the characters. Make me, please?

And that's all I got for you. Do take what I say as nothing more than feedback, I'm not trying to attack you, just the game.

Alright, cool. I'll go down the list.

1. To be fair, I'm not sure what you mean by interact. There's a ton of dialogue and chests and hidden spots, sooo, yeah.

2. I'm not sure that's a legitimate complaint.

3. Thank you, I'm hoping to animate all the characters basic movement: climbing stairs, shock, jumping, etc.

4. The penalty is actually a good idea I hadn't thought of. As for the stairs to the sewers... I don't know? I guess I'm assuming the player will assume this isn't real time? I suppose something should be done about that.

5. First person to ever have a problem with that. The walking speed is rm2k3's default.

6. =X sorry. The language is either a hit or miss for people. Let's be honest though, lots of people talk like this. It doesn't mean they're unintelligent. Of course, in a game setting, I can see the annoyance. Also, in not using a larger vocabulary, I'm trying to make them seem more human. Not everybody has an expansive vocabulary, or if they do, not everyone chooses to use it.

7. Someone else actually pointed this out before.

8. THAT, is a terrible mistake on my part. I put the wolf there as a test and I'm really pissed off at my self for not removing it. >=(

9. I mean... I don't know, you want me to put a function in the game so you can play with this little girl? All you said was "Sure would be nice". Why would it be nice? What are you getting at?

10. I have no idea. Will look into that.

11. I'm not sure what's wrong with your walking speed. And I'm not sure why you don't know who Gambit is. But not knowing who Martha is should be expected, you just met her for the first time.

12. =(

13. will fix.

14. -_- Well, you really don't know much about these characters until you play a little bit farther. Wouldn't that be called character

15. =\ I'm really dumbfounded by the amount of problems you have with walking speed.

Conclusion:

You played for thirty minutes, some of the things I get what you're saying. It wouldn't hurt to clarify some of the character's positions more. Considering the first few minutes are crucial. But to say the plot is "There's two warring citiy-states..." You really need to play more. I'm actually not sure you read any of the text because the story is a little more complicated than that. And it's pretty explicitly stated.

Thank you for playing though. I have a lot to take into consideration. I do understand you were only pointing out what you saw wrong with my game, which is actually very useful.

The walking speed issue occured because of a glitch. I was walking in the inn and suddenly teleported to the graveyard (where I assume you talk to martha) but she was offscreen because I was teleported to the entrance of the graveyard. Then the walking speed remained ridiculously slow. That's why I stopped playing, it never got back to ridiculously fast, and that made me quit.

By interact I mean just examining items in the world. You've got above average maps, yet the characters have nothing to say about anything? It would characterize them more if I could say, examine a statue in the castle and they stated something like "All of their soldier's are nothing but clay statues" or something like that. If I see something I as the player find interesting and try to interact with it but the characters do nothing...it takes me out of the world. It also means I care less about the characters.

Oh I never meant to imply the characters are stupid. It's just that in the first 20 minutes of the game it drops no less than 4 f-bombs and for the most part has little reason to have them say that. I understand the humanity thing but the only character I ever found relating to (for about a minute) was Jake. I wouldn't have mentioned the swearing but once the 5th f-bomb occurred I was just

The girl issue is just silly. My character doesn't even reply to these people I interact with. Samson doesn't care some little brat is yelling at him!? That's not human at all. Plus it would diversify the gameplay if you let the player play something basic like tag or hide n seek.

If you don't let me interact with the NPCs nor the world....why should I care about the characters or the world? I don't know about you but if some little girl is yelling at me I don't plan on giving a rats tail about her.

Gambit issue is again due to the glitch with the inn. I had no idea what was going on in my last ten minutes of play.

All I've seen of Seren is just plain bad guy act. He comes off as a douche really, that's my only issue with him. You walked into my trap! Hah! I'm going to go investigate the rebels! And likely hurt them in the process! It's okay if he's like, insane, but he still comes off as a massive tool.

I'm not going to regurgitate the story to you, you wrote it!

But hey, if I didn't pick up on story information then at least one of these things is occuring:

1. I don't care (this is occurring because I don't care about your characters, except for Jake that one time with the first boss because thus far he's the most human)

2. You're not writing in a clear enough fashion. Now I do like your writing, it's clean, it doesn't waste my time (it's rather above average!). However you state that the story is more complicated. That would mean that you're either telling me too little too early or telling me in cryptic writing the important details. All I know is there's city states, one of them wants to unite under it's own banner, Jake and bitch (she's really poorly characterized thus far as being nothing but a bitch, in my opinion) want to kill the king of the city state that wants to unite.

Oh and one thing I missed. Your combat system, I know it's ABS (or whatever Chrono Trigger's system is called), but it's really too easy. I mean, sure, I only could actually fight the first few battles (because that wolf thing was impossible) but the fact that I could just spam attack (occasionally using herbs) made me lose any tension. I got caught off-guard by a bunch of guards...but I kill them so easily. Loss of tension, loss of strategy. And I do understand that with the battle system it shouldn't be complicated because it should be about quick reactions but if I'm not pressured then what reacting am I to do?

I'll give you more feedback after you fix up that inn glitch. That's why I stopped, I was walking too damn slow after that permanently.

And remember, positives:

1. Your writing is good....why not have the characters say "piss" or "damn" more? It's just that fuck is used way too much in such a short amount of time. I can see you know how to write but the f-bombs soil it because it's just used in a petty fashion. If you used them less they'd have more impact and less annoyance.

2. Mapping is at the very least above average in execution. Although I don't see why I can't walk on certain flowers (the yellow ones).

3. Story isn't bad if only for the fact it doesn't involve the player being the big goody two shoe knight saving the world. I don't know enough to comment otherwise but thank you for not pulling cliche crap (for now).

And that's all I wrote!

Alright, well ,this is interesting. I'm really glad you've said what you said. I hadn't even thought about these things as having been a problem. I feel like I have a real opportunity to enlighten my game some more. I'm a little worried about disenfranchising people with so many updates and versions of the same demo, but anyways, that's how making video games goes.

So, a few questions I have for you. One, where and how exactly did that speed movement glitch happen? I can't for the life of me figure out what you did to trigger that bug.

Secondly, I guess I'm mostly afraid of bogging game play down with too much story in the beginning. Do you think five or ten more minutes of story after the introduction would be too much? Because I do feel like there may be a need for some more basic character development to be made but I don't want it to be over bearing and whatnot. So, that's just an opinion question.

You can play Words some more and see how I make sure everything player could possibly interact with has somebody say something about it. Hell, you know that mole hole in the first map in the crossroads? Examine it! Nothing is wrong with going into such detail because if the player does it then it makes their experience that much more engaging. The downside to doing such things is that players might miss things and anything you tell them during those parts must be (at least to the main story) unimportant otherwise they won't know what you're talking about if you mention it later.

Protip: Update once, patch twice (tops). I've added at least 30 minutes of content to Words (among bug fixes and additional content to areas you've already been to in the demo) and have not released the new content. Why? I've not finished my checklist. If you're going to make people download your game again it better damn well have at least a new hour of content to explore and fix anything that needs it.

I entered the inn in Juniper city...went to go talk to some NPC at the top of the map, and then I just teleported to the graveyard and suddenly I'm talking to this Martha person going "What the hell is going on!?" and then ensues my confusion for the rest of the plot that was given to me. Then I played for another 10 minutes and my speed never went back to normal so I quit playing.

You're thinking about story the wrong way. You have a nice grounding but maybe you did so by chance? You're supposed to tell the story through the gameplay. You're cutscene length is perfect. Main things you need to know (that may not apply to this game):

1. Cutscenes shouldn't exist....And never let the player character do something in a cutscene that the player can't do.

2. The game should never take control away from the player; Words has dialogue choices and therefore there are no cutscenes. I'm not saying you need dialogue choices, whatever works for your game (Words requires them, Apathy of Angels doesn't but it's up to you). I was pissed when the guards were chasing me and the game took control away from me. I'm supposed to be playing not watching.

Perhaps give the player ample time to understand that they are being chased and let them run! Hell you let us explore the castle a bit before we get chased. Make us subtly get a decent memory of the layout so we know where to go. Maybe have the bitch (I'll stop referring to her as such when she is an actual character, she's just there for the plot's sake as is) suggest to Jake to find a way out of the castle before they attempt to do the deed? Do not have her say "This is the exit" because that is going to make me, the player, feel like an absolute retard.

Do what I said to do for characterization, make the map interactive. I saw a flag/shield or something in the castle, I went up, press enter, and nothing happened. Why not have the bitch grow a personality and make some human thought about the colors and how she hates them or what the colors symbolize. Making them interact means that players who want to learn more can do so and those who don't simply move on with the game. Once again, Words never makes you interact with the letter on Metoh's desk. If you do though then the game will adjust the dialogue you have with Rolando to make the player part of the games story and not just an audience member.

I am not saying to be more like Words. You are telling your story just fine, it just needs to dump the hand holding (guards chasing me and I have no control in an interactive medium....). I'm simply using Words as a reference that you can build on and do what works for your own art.

Invalid or deleted file.
can you please re-upload?

Renkai, please don't necropost. Neither the developer nor this game have had any activity here since November.