A long time ago there was a small town called Fiery.
This town was neutral with all the other nations of the world.
There men were mostly hired as mercanaries.

The special thing about Fiery was that it
was the one place in the world were you
could learn the art of the GreatSword.

The two nations of the world Fury and Ratchell
are at peace. Warriors from Fiery have been bodyguards
of the king of Fury for as long as anyone can remember.

Our story begins on the outskirts of Fiery.
Our hero of this tale Shawn is seeking to become
a Bodyguard just like his father used to be
before he retired.

Fiery is under attack!!!! Are you ready to grab your blade
and join Shawn on his adventure???

Fantasy Adventure
Made using Rpg Maker Vx

New Demo out now!
Download the game here .exe file http://www.mediafire.com/?qa2ioami4661z9a
Download the game here Full file http://www.mediafire.com/?mwt29n4d9oqv37f
ScreenShots











Shawn - The son of a former Kings bodyguard. Trained in the ways of his father. He strives to become a bodyguard of the King and follow in his fathers footsteps. That ambition changes when he has to step up and be a bodyguard for the whole world before tyranny rules it.


Jordan - A fighter thrown in a dungeon. Fights his way out with the help of Shawn. A calm yet ready to explode personality. His WarCry ability helps all around him. Also with the ability to heal himself Jordan is not one to mess around with.


Marina - One of the two remaining survivors of Fiery. A powerful Priest that heals any wound inflicted on herself or her allys. Able to revive the dead and shoot a bow with deadly accuracy. Joins Shawn on his journey as his childhood friend and survivor of catastrophe.


Lucas - A Royal Prince of the land of Fury. Wields a greatsword and fights in a defensive style. Calm and fierce. Has a gaze that only a person who gets everything he wants can have. Has Shawn join him on a quest to save his Kingdom from utter destruction.



Fury - A kingdom ruled by an iron fist. It has been told they have the best soldiers in the world. Guilds populate the kingdom as well as a colosseum that holds life and death combat. Looking to expand there kingdom but does not have the manpower to do so. Stays at peace with Ratchell waiting for there moment to attack.

Ratchell - A country that loves there king. Has a huge population compared to Fury. Mostly a peacefull people but does have warriors that can compete with the best of Furys. This kingdom is bordered next to a land overrun with Demons as well as Fury. If not for there large numbers this country would have been destroyed a long time ago. Fighting Demons on one side constantly and trying to keep peace with Fury at the same time. Can this country handle two wars?





Storytelling of war, strife, love, friendship, and betrayal.
Origional music from Composer of the game Enigmatic.
Unique World Map.
Nice mix of linear and non linear moments in the game.
Slip and slide Ice cave puzzle.
Dodge the skeletons mini game.
Forest Maze.
Desert were you can die of thirst. Figure out how to get to the next oasis by visual clues and using your mind.
colosseum
Choose your own adventure book kinda gameplay in some parts of the story.
Jumping Puzzles
Moving Rock Puzzles
RPGMakerVX Regular battle system but very Balanced and some good boss fights that will challenge you.
Suikoden like Duels
8 Boss Battles in a demo that is only 3.5 to 4 hours long. There will be plenty boss's in this game's final product
Final Demo Length around 3.5 to 4 hours

New Demo out now!
Download the game here .exe file http://www.mediafire.com/?qa2ioami4661z9a
Download the game here Full file http://www.mediafire.com/?mwt29n4d9oqv37f

(Fiery SoundTrack)Music from composer Enigmatic
World Map Theme - http://youtu.be/OAEENCFQ5Uo
Main Menu Theme(Prelude) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG21vdRrYEA
Railways - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbSANUWMzXk
Cave Theme - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgBjE0iNYoU
PeacefulVillage - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEEWZbJSFus
VillageTheme - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeLQwrt1qn4...eature=youtu.be
SheepInTheForest - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kAa1YEcB0M...eature=youtu.be



Credits: abartke for helping me with character dialogue and writing of the game. Emma for some down Sprites. Blake for BlueKnight and femalearmorezra. Aindra for her variable tutorial that helped me create the desert level.
Special Thanks: Scorneo for helping me out with a couple of things.
Composer of the game Enigmatic Here is some of his other work that he has done. http://www.youtube.com/DiegoSalas05
Kylock for his lighting script, KGC for his overdrive script, biged781 for his levelup script, Yem for his snapshot script, and Hummenculus for his Custom menu script.
Sprite Credits
Jalen
sevith
Soruve
Aaron N.P.
Anti-hero
Blaziruku
Burn66
buddah
Dr. Mombo
ivox_safa
Johanna
Kang
Tayuke
Gameclover
EBTSukuru CharacterMonsterSet
FenixFyre
Hanzo Kimura
Any other sprites / scripts I use if you are not mentioned in the credits at the start of demo don't worry you will be in the credits at the end of the full game.



Finally finished the new demo. I'm very proud of it and hope everyone enjoys it.



Thanks For Playing,
SilverSnake

Yayyy 9 days in project submissions and it finally got moved. Almost gave up hope.

It shouldn't have taken that long, and I apologize. I'm not sure how it was missed, but I was out of commission for a good part of last week, and part of this week as well. I know it's been hectic lately with a lot of changes going on, but once everything is finalized, response times should definitely improve.

What impressed me right off the bat is the graphics, especially given the fact that this is your first game. They're pretty well organized and looks like a good amount of thought was put into their design. Did you do all the mapping by yourself?

One thing you should know, you have a typo in your screenshot. It should read "YOU'RE IN OUR LAND NOW!"

I downloaded the demo, I will play it soon.

To Amerk thanks for the reply on how long it took.

To LostSamurai Thanks for the interest and the typo mistake. I'll fix that asap and try to get an updated screenshot as soon as possible.
My first game but I have been working on it for awhile now so I have changed many things from when I first started.
When I first started I didn't even know how to make fire move by clicking walking animation.

In your trilogy are they all full games completed?

Yes, my trilogy is all full games. The series is about 15 hours long in total.

EDIT: So, I started playing your demo, and I'm liking it so far.

There's only a few significant issues I have run into:

First, it seems apparent to me now now that your dialogue needs work, specifically in the spelling and grammar department. It may seem like a small issue, but it's considered unprofessional, and some people find it rather annoying to play a game where they have to decipher through mistakes like that. If English is your second,third, etc. language, perhaps you should have someone proofread your game before you release it.
For example:
There refers to a place. Their is a possessive adjective. and They're means they are. They are not interchangable.

Second, I got murdered by the guards for walking over to a treasure chest. Had I not saved first I would have had to start the entire game over because I went to a treasure chest which screamed "open me." The guard should at least WARN you before murdering you for checking the chest. I didn't know I was stealing. Why did you KILL me for it?

Third, I got murdered by the fire spirits in the maze. They do quite a lot of damage when they cast their Fire spell. it's a large difference- ~35 for a basic attack that misses often versus ~150 guaranteed damage. Your survival in the maze is very highly based on luck. I think you should probably lower the damage of the fire spell significantly, by like half.

That's all for now. I will continue playing soon.

I'll try your game when I get a chance. Right now Diablo 3 is taking most of my free time.

As for your comments on Fiery so far. Spelling sorry I try my best. I've had people look it over but I guess they miss it as well.
When final game is released I will have massive people check my game for spelling.

A warning for the guards by the chest is a good idea. I'll implement that in.

Your not the first who has had trouble with that area. I will be battle testing in that area soon. That area was never really my intention to be hard mainly just the maze. I will definitly fix that in the near future.

Gl with rest of game. Need any help you can message me.

I played more, there's some major game-breaking issues that I have come across:

1. The random encounters are far too powerful, and the amount of experience/gold that they give is 100% not worth the amount of slaughter they put you through, especially considering the price of items in the shop. In fact, the bats in the cave are significantly more threatening than the mercenary warriors, and give much less EXP/Gold. I considered them to be obstacles to dodge, and it was like I was getting punished for getting hit by them. And after all the fighting I did, when I got to "small unnamed town", I couldn't even afford a single revive.

2. On top of them being too powerful, winning the battles are based far too much on luck. I game over-ed several times because the enemy used a spell instead of attacked too many times, or I missed too many times, etc. Do you have any control on the accuracy of your attacks? I think this should be modified. Also, the power difference between enemy spells and basic attacks is a little extreme, like I already addressed with the fire elementals.

3. The merc boss uses poison, which you are not warned about at all, and are not given a single item to remove the poison. You would have had to have guessed that poison might become an issue and buy it in the shop, but since your gold supply is so limited, it's not even worth the gamble. On top of that, the poison doesn't disappear after battle, and you are forced to leave the cave the way you came with poison sapping away your hit points and random encounter bats that will kill you if you accidentally hit them.

4. There is absolutely no reason to make the save pedestals only usable once. That is a really poor decision and my biggest complaint. This makes the game extremely frustrating. I game overed AFTER fighting the merc boss because I accidentally hit one of the bats on my way out of the cave when I was at very low HP thanks to the poison that I couldn't get rid of, and now I'll have to fight the long, not too exciting boss battle all over again. Limiting saves is very dangerous, because nobody likes having to replay parts of the game that they already went through, especially when they die over something unfair.

That was the point at which I rage quit the game. I'll continue playing tomorrow, but there are some serious difficulty/fairness issues that need to be addressed. I'm curious how often do you game over yourself in your play testing? Am I missing something? Is there a simple way to NOT get raped every fight? Because I'm at a loss. I have played your game for over an hour, yet it is only clocked at 32 minutes because of how much I have died and had to repeat parts. I have spent just as much time replaying parts that I was at already after getting a game over as I did advancing the storyline.

Reply to LostSamurai

1. Stinks you are having trouble with the random encounters. I find the Merc warriors harder when I test and had some of my friends in real life test. Bats hit soft they usually are just a nuisance to me. You can dodge the monsters. That is why it is not random encounters. Some people like to fight them all some like to dodge em. I have fully tested the battles on 4 play throughs. 2 with fighting every single monster I can. 2 with trying to dodge as many as I can. The only real fight that I died at sometimes was against Jordan in the Prison. Some fights I get pretty low on hp. Then again I do know all boss attacks and such. I have seen 5 of my friends beat the game though and sometimes they die in fights but it's not that bad that they rage. (You can rage all you want not trying to put you down.)

2. As for you dying cause of bad luck. My boss fights are all setup by each turn they do. How low there heath is etc. I agree with the fire elementals magic being to strong and was actually testing it out today. I only died once though out of five attempts testing it(Fighting every monster and yes I got nailed with two fire attacks in a row and eventually got low on potions when I died). Main reason I'm changing it is because that level is supposed to be more about the maze not the fights. Not done with that yet. As for other attacks right now your the only one that is having problems. If I get more I'll chg it.

3. Why should I warn you that the boss has a poison attack? As for low cash I usually can afford new equip for Jordan and Shawn and some potions + antidotes(Tip buy the weapon that Jordan hits two times with. It does less damage if hits once but hitting twice you do more). I sell their old equipment after buying their new. You can beat the fight without antidote as well just makes it a little tougher. When you beat the boss fight you do not have to leave the same way you came in. Just go north there is another exit.

4. I actually used to have it setup to use the save pedestals as much as you wanted. But people abused it and then said the game was to easy. I'm sorry that this is your least favorite part of the game. The game is intended to be a challenge. Every fight is winnable I have done it plenty of times getting in as little fights as possible as well. I have save points before every boss fight/dungeon. You can save in towns at the inn. The dungeons usually are not that big only maybe 3-5 fights before you get to a boss. Also you can also run back to the town and rest at the inn if needed.

Keep chugging along man the story picks up big time once you get to Fury.
p.s Stop dying the game is not that hard. Once you get to Fury you get a healer on your team as well so that should help you out.
I'll play your game tomorrow and tell you what I think.
Edit: went to try your game got this message

Do you have the english version of the RMXP RTP? That's what RGSS102e is. If you have a different version, open up the configuration settings (the other file entitled "Game) in notepad and change the RTP version to whatever you are using. The current version if 104E apparently, and that version can be downloaded here <a href="http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/download/run-time-package" target="_blank">http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/download/run-time-package</a>. Once you download it, open up the configuration file in notepad and change RGSS102e to RGSS104e and save the file.

1. The ability to dodge the random encounters is also highly based on luck. They have a random pattern of movement, and you often have very narrow paths which you need to try and sprint past them and hope for the best. I assure you, after getting murdered repeatedly by them, I have no desire to ever fight a random encounter. However like I said, sometimes I can't avoid them, and when I do fight them, the amount of damage I take and just how little reward XP and Gold I get makes it feel more like a punishment than anything.

3. You need to put SOMETHING to deal with the fact that the boss has poison. Either the mayor can warn you about his poison attacks, or make a treasure chest somewhere that gives you antidotes, or make the poison end at end of battle. Nobody buys status healing items just in case, especially at the cost that they usually are because in most games they end up being useless. And if you're not prepared, you now have poison and no way of getting rid of it.

4. Why do you consider saving and healing to be synonymous anyway? Even if the save pedestals only heal you once, there's no reason that you can't use them repeatedly to save. Also, in the inns, you have to pay money to save. Your ability to save is limited.

By the way, do your real life friends test the game independently or with you over their shoulder?

Ahhh I don't have rmxp. Is there a download where I can play without having rmxp installed.
I'll put a treasure chest in the cave with one poison item in it.
I've had one test it independently since he lives in another state. The other 4 play with me over their shoulder.
Others reviews of the game in terms of the battle system. Most get stuck at the fire elementals and Jordan fight. After that no one has complained about the battle system or lack of heals/saves. You can do it man. Are you using your spells and stuff? Casting warcry with Jordan?
For most fights I start off with Shawn using spells until warcry has been cast by Jordan. Then it's mostly attack and healing with potions and such.

I used spells with Shawn almost exclusively, Jordan would attack once in a while, Warcry right before the metered attacks were ready, but mostly use healing items. Ironically I had no trouble with the Jordan fight at all. That's the one fight that I didn't have trouble with. Now I have Marina and the other dude in my party, so we'll see how the gameplay changes with a full party and an actual healer.

I actually don't have RMVX myself, I just have the RTP installed. I know you don't need to have the RMXP program, just the RTP installed as well. I'd be willing to make the game playable without the RTP, but I'm not sure how to make a project folder that includes the RTP, do you know how to do it?

EDIT:
Some updates. I'm now through the Ice Cave.

I still stand by my statement that there is way too big of a difference between the basic attacks and the spells of your random encounters. The ice slimes for example- they can do ~75 damage to one party member that misses a lot, or they can do 150+ to everybody. This is an 800% increase in damage output and I think it causes way too varied of a result.

In the desert town you have a bunch of items which are just blank slots that I can buy for free that don't do anything.

The music in your game is absolutely beautiful. I LOVE the overworld map music especially. Was this music created for your game specifically, and who created it? It's just a fantastic piece. There's just a couple of obvious RTP songs that are out of place, it would be great if you could replace them with more originals.

I'm now completely lost. After getting out of the cave Lucas is like "you can go anywhere". But then the first two places I went to they said "not here." Then the desert town had nothing to do. And your overworld is EXTREMELY MASSIVE and very easy to just wander around aimlessly. Oh well, at least the music is nice to listen to.

I'm done for the night, will play more eventually, I don't think I have the time tomorrow.

Looks like I will have to get the rtp for xp to try your game. Vx lets you compress the game file to play with rtp or without.

I'll deff look into those slots. Prob from an earlier version and never took it out. Nice catch.
The music is original music. Their is a total of 7 songs. If you look at the topic you can listen to them. The plan is to get as many custom songs as possible but I do not do the music or pay for the music so it's on Enigmatics(Composer) free time.

As for where to go next. You need to head to Freedom Castle which is south if you follow the road. There is treasure chests hidden on the world map. The desert town is where you can join the Chronic Adventure Guild. It is side quests but that is not available until a little later on in the game. There are two other towns on the map that you can go into. One is mainly for a later quest you get in the guild. The other is where you will need to go to continue the main story later on and enter a Gladiator coliseum contest. That is not yet either. As for the areas that you are not allowed to go into yet(caves,mines,tower,volcano,etc) that is all for the Chronic Adventure Guild. You will be able to enter those later if you want. It is not necessary to join the guild to advance the story. So anyways when you continue just follow the yellow brick road south

By the way, I want to just take the time to say I am impressed with this piece of work you have put together. Not many people are able to make a game this well planned and consistent on their first try. You should see the piece of crap games that were my first project. So far in my report I have been focusing on the negative, but that doesn't mean I don't like the game or that I think you did a poor job. Quite the contrary, I have merely been pointing out things that I feel can be improved upon because I see the potential in this project. But you deserve a pat on the back.

Thanks for the pat on the back. Good to see praise once in awhile. Sorry it took so long to respond I was on vacation.

This game definitely has a bit of a steep learning curve, but it's also followed by some linear pathing: the bosses all share the same pattern of moves no matter how many times you face them.

Bosses -



Monster Encounters -



Mapping -



/Page Break --------------------------------------------------

Overall: Every single encounter will put you at quite the disadvantage as everything has much higher agility than you and are constantly going first 90% of the time. Imagine the cave bat trio dishing out 90+ damage 3 times before your party can do anything.

Bosses also have the same ridiculous speed boosts, making them much more difficult than they should be. The so-called "challenge" is mainly attributed to how imbalanced their stat parameters are compared to the player. You aren't fighting against a well-tuned AI, but improper scaling.

I suppose I should also mention that when a developer makes a game: he/she by the end will have an easier time with the product, because they've been working on it and have gone through it enough times to personalize it, but just because they find the difficulty "reasonable" doesn't mean the general public will have that same experience as said developer, nor will they have that feeling of familiarity, hence there are many instances where a game can be much more challenging than intended.

5 testers are also not a proper sample size, so I hope you can get as many players as you can for this demo, who will also give you feed-back.

Miscellaneous -



Final Demo Impressions -

Just finished the demo (haven't gotten to the guild place, since I forgot where it was).

The final maze is a bit contrived and that huuuuge loop all the way back to the crystal orb in the withered forest area is highly unnecessary. I found myself looping back and forth for the most part and it was a tad tedious. The monster encounters also reminded me of the fire elementals: the path is too narrow to properly avoid them.

I would also suggest placing another crystal orb just prior to the wolf boss or atleast at the witch's cabin, rather than force the player to go all the way back to the previous one.

Warcry is a hit or miss and I'm not sure if it's a bug or intended: I think it'd be good if the buff actually worked for everyone 100%, as it does help balance out the difficulty of the encounters.

I LOVED your huge world map and have been exploring every inch/crevice, including via the boat. The extensive detail and mapping in general is fantastic and there are several places where you could have additional chest/encounter/events along the way. Creating immersive side-quests that you can trigger as soon as you discover them.

The Desert puzzle and the infiltration event was also very entertaining. I'd of liked to have the game reset you back to the last save point or to the beginning for choosing the wrong way to go, rather than having to go through the GO screen each time, as I thoroughly enjoyed trying out all the options just for laughs.

Finally; I got lost a lot when exploring the huge world map, and even though you had bill-board signs: I think the game would benefit greatly if you could somehow implement a mini-map or a map in general that indicated where you were and marks or symbols showing where you need to be. Would also be a big plus if monuments or "special" places could be marked for future reference/exploration after you discover them: like the second demon pedestal you find (that resembles the one from the ice cave).

Lethitax Thanks for playing the demo man. Not many people actually finish it so thanks a lot.
Let's start with your main complaint of the demo. The battle system

Bosses
Seems you had trouble on the first second and fourth boss only.

In your first boss comments you make it seem like the way you beat the boss is the only way to beat him. There is more then the way you did it. A simple way for example is to use a regular attack when he first goes since he defends. Then special and just magic 2-3 times and he dies. You can beat him without even using your special.

Second boss is a fast battle. I throw a hint at you before he does his ultimate move. If you do not get the hint then yes you will probably die. If your lucky you can actually kill him without him getting off his special if you did have a special saved up. Beatable without a special as well. You make it seem like I should warn you this boss is coming. If you do not have your special it is not auto death. Simple way to beat him is attack him relentlessly till you get the hint that he is attacking in two moves. Use a potion on turn one defend second. Then just finish him off. Couple ways to beat him. His damage and defense/agility is the same stats as when you get him in your party. Only his heath is slightly different.

Fourth boss item spamming. I do not think item spamming is all that neccesary. I just tried fighting him to see what you mean and I only used 2 potions 1 antidote(he missed a lot sometimes you get lucky).
As for not knowing that the boss has poison I offer it at the shop in town. It's possible to beat him without using antidotes just makes it a lot more harder and probably some item spamming as you call it. Monsters do not respawn so running back to town shouldn't be a problem. It's not to far.

It may seem that I'm blowing off your comments on the boss battles. Not the case. If you ever played my other demos I used to have a whole different battle system. I changed it and tested the crap out of this one to be hard but not to hard. Multiple play throughs of fighting every monster I can and trying to skip as many as I can. Also you mention 5 testers for my game. 5 testers is a lot of people to test my game. I also get comments from other players as well. I'm on 4 different forums so If more complain I will certainly change things. Just worked really hard on this battle system so gotta defend it. Like complaints though not trying to bash you. Love you for finishing the demo.

As for spells/abilities(RNG) doing more damage. I like it that way. Why should a regular attack do more then a spell/special ability?
You don't need four ice rings to beat Ice Cave. Easy enough with 0. Jellies you just gotta hit them hard and fast. Leave nothing back. You have a healer in your party now so that should be huge.

Mapping
To narrow paths to dodge some enemies. I don't want you to dodge every single battle sometimes you get lucky sometimes you don't.
Lava Floor is designed to be a maze. Long paths that lead to each other and connect are intended. As for no treasures if you go the wrong way. It would not be a maze if their was treasure if you went the wrong way. I'd go the the wrong way on purpose just to get the treasure.

Warcry is done like that on purpose. I wanted to add a little luck to the game as well. The ability has a 75% chance of sticking to each character.

Now for your good Stuff

Mapping

I'm glad you liked the World Map. Doing that map took me forever. The game starts off linear but opens up later on as you have found out. As for wanting random events in the map that is how it is going to be in Ratchells part of the world map. The Fury world map is mainly for the side quests you can do in the Chronic Adventure Guild. I do have some treasure chests hidden around not to many. I got some complaints when I had more on map people was like I'm getting rich just exploring the world. Wish this happened in real life walk around find gold. Main reason why their is less treasure to find on it now.

Really happy you liked the desert level and the Recon mission one. People either seem to love or hate them no in between.
Good idea on adding a mini map I'll look into that.

Final Comments

Thanks for taking the time to play the game and beat the demo. I understand you did not enjoy the battle system and I feel sad for that but you can't please everyone.
I highly recommend doing the Chronic Adventure Guild side quests. They have a lot of mini games in them and are a lot of fun. Their is minimal fighting in it so you do not have to worry about that to much. It is located In Frultuva that is the desert town top left where you got the boat.
Also quick question how did you like the story so far? One part of the game you didn't really comment on.
If you have a game that you are working on or have completed I'd love to play it.

For everyone else I have not had time to work on the game lately. Diablo 3 was ruling my free time. Good news is that I have beat it in Inferno mode finally so I will be playing it a lot less then I was before. As for where I am at in working on the game I still am finishing up all the side quest mission for the Chronic Adventure Guild.
I'm off tomorrow so I plan on working on this for most of the day. Thanks for everyone who has shown an interest in my game.

Well, considering I did finish the demo; it meant that I eventually settled into how things worked, but still: I ended having to expend a lot of my healing items per normal encounter, or head back and forth to a crystal orb. These encounters though not too often are still more difficult than they should be. The monsters go first 90% of the time and are able to dish out some 90+ damage on average.

Some other points I'd like to mention -

The cleric can't sustain those physical hits and her protect spell does little to nothing in reducing physical damage. I usually have to keep her on block whenever she isn't needed, so she doesn't get focused down too quickly. I mean her magic-resist is perfectly fine, but she's too frail for everything else.

It seems you really want to deter grinding or encounters in general with the way they're set-up, because that's what I did the farther I got into the game, as the danger/damage taken far out-weighed the rewards for winning.

Shawn also seems more like a mage than a knight, since his magic is very useful in most encounters.

I did have trouble with money early on, but exploration and later mobs drop a good sum, however, the experience rates could be higher. For now the difficulty is high, but experience gained is low.

Is there any plans for your own air-ship later? Walking everywhere takes a while ._.

As for the story, everything makes sense so far; although the beginning seemed rather surreal, because it was all so sudden. You adding extra dialogues for the hero when speaking to the corpses didn't help matters, in my opinion. Getting thrown in that dungeon jail just to prove yourself also seemed rather unbelievable as well, and made the king look more like a sadistic clown to me.

Besides that...the story itself flows pretty fluently, though Jordan can be a bit eccentric at times, and some interactions with certain npc's seem rather fickle: at the witch's cabin, I expected a fight, and was rather thrown off by what actually happens.

Glad you got settled into it.
On some of your points.

It's not that I want to deter you from grinding. I just want the player to play how he wants. Is he one of those players that like to grind? Go ahead I believe if you fight every single monster you are usually 2-3 levels higher at the end of the demo then if you try to skip them(depending how many you skip of course). If you are a player that wants to skip battles go right ahead boss battles will be a little more tough but manageable.

As for some parts of the story being unbelievable. Maybe later on it will make more sense.

Shawn is not a Knight he is a Dark Knight. Why he is good at magic as well as damage. He is going to learn some pretty sick spells later on.

As for an Airship I do have a plan for you getting your own but that will be another 2-3 hours further into the game from when the demo ends.

Getting thrown off at the witches cabin. That's a good thing I don't want you to know what is going to happen every single time.
Once again thanks for playing.

Finished side quest 5. I have recorded a video of side quest 4 and 5. After you beat my demo you get a chance to do the side quests if you wish. I have not gotten any feedback on them since most just stop at the end of the demo. Hopefully people can watch this and get more motivation for doing them.
Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3P6cgsP0NM...eature=youtu.be
Updated Demo with easier start and you can also do the side quests at the end of the game up to the end of Side Quest 5 like in the video.

Your title screen looks nice! So does your game over screen...I saw it a lot. At the risk of sounding like a loser, I didn't get past the first town. I died 4 or 5 times and gave up. I think Shawn needs to start off at a higher level. It's just mathematically difficult and winning depends too much on luck. Otherwise, it looks like you're off to a good start. typos aside.

U die on the first town???
Main thing if you do not want to follow this is that you need to use magic. You can't just spam attack in my game and win.
For regular bad guys just do this regular attack first move 2nd move use shade. Then after battle heal and ether.
For Boss regular attack then special then just spam shade he'll go down fast.
This is probably easiest way beat this area you should have no problems if you just do that.
Can you please point out the typos you see as well. Needa fix those especially if they are so early in the game.

For those interested I also finished side quest 6 and here is a sneak peek of the level.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt6cgsRUC5w&feature=plcp