MV - Ulfar: Dreams (Chronicles Of Zemak)

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Started by leenat40 20 posts View original ↗
  1. leenat40
    #1 Source
    THIS WAS MOVED TO "PROJECT DEVELOPMENT" AND THIS PAGE IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED!



    And so, the newest demo just been released! It add's the first half of Chapter 3, fixes various problems, rewrites some bad dialogue, adds a completely new battle system and more! Feedback would be appreciated!
    UlfarDreams2.png
    This is still in early development stages!
    I would like that the feedback would focus mostly on the story-line, because it's the main pillar of the game!


    World

    The story takes place in "The Alliance". Thousands of years before, the continent was split into 6 countries Their names were Azurath, Mapocho, Endel, Curap, Slentehli, Arminde.
    Every kingdom had a powerful mage. Things escalated and the kings went mad. Mages wanted to protect people, created a covenant with the god of death: Zomak. They became his immortal warriors, in turn, the kingdoms would get better kings. Years flew pass, until mages assassinated one of the old kings. His kingdom fell into ruins, because "The Corruption" was still spreading. In turn, this made the other kings very scared, and just like that the five kingdoms became war nations, fighting for lands. And with that, the "Gap of years" began. The only thing known, is only 3 kingdoms remained. Just like that, the lands of the fallen kingdoms became "Corrupted" and unlivable. It was decided, that the right thing to do would be to join forces and create a strong kingdom. That kingdom became "The Alliance". More lore will be found in-game!



    The Story

    The story starts with a sixteen year old boy, named Jon learning how to hunt, with the help of his dad. But everything seems off. Finally, Jon's dad wants to tell the truth, only to be stopped by a surprise attack. Things escalate and Jon finds himself in care of an old wizard who knew his father. What follows next, is a dramatic tale about time travel, time paradoxes, cycles, friendship, family and vengeance...


    The Game
    ​
    http://www.mediafire.com/file/h1yxxn6xicwidgw/Ulfar+Dreams+DEMO+1.03.rar


    The Screenshots


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  2. Abdulla Al-Farsi
    #2 Source
    I love to play it!

    Unfortunately, my internet connection is BAD!!! I can't download it right now.

    Well, I like the story. It sounds interesting. Your maps are acceptable.

    I think you did a good job.

    Well Done :)
  4. Abdulla Al-Farsi
    #4 Source
    @leenat40

    I played the game. I loved the story so much, but it doesn't have feelings. It looks like it's not emotional.
    It feels like killing people is something very normal. The family of the main character is dead, but the character doesn't show his sadness.

    Also, the maps need to be improved more. I suggest you learn mapping.

    Good job anyway.
  5. lixerman99
    #5 Source
    Thanks for uploading your game.
    I played the whole demo, making notes as I went, so I've got a lot to say! (As a result of this, I may also sound kinda picky. Trust though, I enjoyed your game.)

    To start, the intro is very well done, including the title screen.
    At the start of the story, your father tells you to attack as Jon then guard as your father, but he actually comes first in your party, so I ended up doing it in the wrong order.
    Then there's the ambush from the bandits. I think it'd be good to have a bit more bonding with your dad before the cut scene, and I think Tom could look different to the other ordinary bandits being the big evil lad, but the cut scene itself is done very well and caught me by surprise. The chase scene is very cool, but he immediately owned me as there was no time to realize what was going on and it took me a couple more deaths to realize I could and had to run. Old dad dies and you run home to mum (who again I think it would be good to have spent some time with before this encounter). You meet Arach, a character I like but was immediately suspicious of (dark eyes, weird shadow monsters, super goth house). I think his house has some wasted space, but LOVE the weird way trees and stuff outside the house surround it in the black.
    Then there's bridge scene, where Arach explains the story.
    I have to say, trying my very best, even with the context of the story from your game description, I didn't understand the story he was explaining. I think maybe if some of this, on a more basic level, was explained earlier by your mum or something, then it was referenced and expanded on by Arach it could be better. Or, if maybe it was explained in simpler steps, with images ( ZELDA: THE WINDWAKER intro style) it would be easier to understand. Then you finally get to do some dungeoneering, which I WISH lasted longer as it was in my opinion the funnest part of your game. The moment I found the note I knew the name was Arach, and I thought the note was very well done. I found the slow walking a bit annoying but the dungeon created a kinda spooky atmosphere well. The enemies were good but I wish there were more moves, group battles and types of monsters. The 3 shades battle was cool, but every hit they did scored 0 damage! I then got the box power thingy, followed by what I felt was a spectrum of confusing scenes then the lava plume thingy.
    I liked the remeeting of Tom and was happy to see I was right about Arach, who seemed to have an interesting relationship with Tom. The brother killing was a good punishment for how Jon is definitely a pretty evil character really.
    It's revealed Arach is a mage, along with the other mages' names which trumped my idea that each mage would be revealed to be an introduced character in each chapter. The mage reveal thing kinda confused me, because he'd already talked about how he was a mage but I guess the evil mages are specific ones? Maybe call the 'Royal Mages' or something.
    And that was pretty much the end of my notes, though as I understand English is not your first language so there was some spelling and grammatical errors. Overall, I liked your game, but feel there should be more open areas (being able to explore your house before you leave with your dad and talk with your mother and brother optionally or something) and I think considering the game is so story centered the story should be clearer.
  6. leenat40
    #6 Source
    @lixerman99 Thank you so much! I will definitely try to improve everything mentioned here.
    Also, it may not be clear from this demo, but Jon and Arach become the main antagonists of the story, while his brother gets revived by a mysterious stranger, that reveals that
    Spoiler
    He needs to kill his own brother (AKA Jon), to free the world from The Awakened corruption
    Also, this whole Demo was just a prologue, and the game technically becomes an open world after this.
  7. lixerman99
    #7 Source
    leenat40 said:
    @lixerman99 Thank you so much! I will definitely try to improve everything mentioned here.
    Also, it may not be clear from this demo, but Jon and Arach become the main antagonists of the story, while his brother gets revived by a mysterious stranger, that reveals that
    Spoiler
    He needs to kill his own brother (AKA Jon), to free the world from The Awakened corruption
    Also, this whole Demo was just a prologue, and the game technically becomes an open world after this.

    With the context that this is setting up the two main villains and the game will become open world, the game works much better. I'm excited to play more later on!
  8. leenat40
    #8 Source
    If 10 or more people try and review my game, then I'll upload an open world demo featuring one story mission, the forest region and 2 side-quest's!
  9. feckyeslife
    #9 Source
    I had a ton of time between samples today so I took the time to play your demo. The concept intrigued me, but I think you need some more polishing before it's a solid introduction.

    Jon, to me, is a very one-note character. I want to understand why he's so upset all the time, but when the game starts with his own dad commenting that Jon wishes "Richard" was dead, it's difficult to figure out. At the very end of the demo, it makes sense that Jon's off the wall with power and rage, but in the other parts, it just makes me not care about him as a character.

    I don't mind the use of RTP resources and animations, but please try to make them match the skills you're trying to execute. Whistle is a roar - completely off base. With regard to skills and balancing, I think you should take a little more care to give the player some interesting ones to play with. Jon only ends up with Whistle and Lesser Curse (I think that was the name?) throughout the playthrough and LC is nearly unusable. With the number of simple battles, the player needs something to keep them interested in them otherwise it's just a grind fest.

    Some grammar and spelling needs to be tweaked, but overall the characters spoke well. The swearing felt gratuitous in places, so maybe tone it down to just a few notes when the situation really demands it. And the shouting. Oof. There's a lot of it. You can use YEP's text plugin to do bold, italics, or even just increase the font size when your characters are getting emotional. Because of the capslock, Jon (and even the antagonists) feels like he has 2 settings - neutral and ENRAGED.

    Why is there literally only one female character who is immediately murdered? No other side characters could be women? I know there aren't many side characters overall, but it's an important consideration to take into account as you continue to work on this project.

    Your concept overall has merit. Playing as a character stuck in an eternal loop intrigues me, so seeing how Jon's story (or the story of the mages overall) morphs over the ages is what really stuck with me about this game. The gameplay needs work to better sell that story, but again, the game has promise.

    More notes and bugs under the tag.
    Review notes / bugs
    - "WHY ARE YOU TALKING LIKE YOU'RE GOING TO DIE TODAY" "Wouldn't you like that" felt very out of place for the kind of serious direction that your lore implies
    - Second Jon shows up after spotting Gemy right before fight
    - Item popups are nice, a little small
    - Jon isn't looking at his dad while they're talking after the Gemy fight
    - "Where are you going? Home is that way" The direction indicated was nice, but the scroll took forever
    - "UNTIL YOU TRIED TO BETRAYED ME IN THOSE CAVES" 'betray' not 'betrayed'. Or, take out the 'tried to'
    - BGM overall very soft compared to other SEs
    - Jon does not in fact run after his dad tells him to; he's moving at standard speed and stops to wait for the player to click. You should move him a few more blocks up past the camera before the black out
    - "GOTHCA" 'gotcha'
    - Was unclear that the player had control again to begin running as Jon
    - Question marks cut off at edges of speech bubbles
    - Jon's house is ENORMOUS. Mapping could be improved by limiting the amount of open space
    - What happened to the danger of the forest burning?
    - Get a lot of elixers in boxes but have yet to need any --> a moment later, I am inundated with fights so I used a few. Still, it was odd to be accruing them with no fights inbetween.
    - Swearing is alright, but it feels a little over the top throught the entire game. Same with the CAPSLOCK.
    - Why do I have magic points but I can't use Whistle with them? Whistle is displayed in the Magic screen. May be adventagous to put "tp" and "mp" after the costs because the color difference is subtle between green and blue.
    - Whistle sound appears to be a roar rather than, well, a whistling noise
    - Whistle should make an icon appear to tell the player how long the defense debuff is going to last.
    - TP gain rate may be a little high. Plus, I only ever spend 5.
    - Chest that I had opened isn't showing up as open after the fight -> make sure you're using self switches
    - If you don't click the dialogue box when Jon yells "DIE!" the bandits downstairs just move around randomly. Looks odd... Oh, so they just randomly walk around? Thought it was scripted that Jon was being attacked. Unclear again that the player had control to move around.
    - Hits from bandits take out nearly half of Jon's health, even after levelling up.
    - 3 identical fights in a row gets boring
    - Possible bug: one of the bandits disappears after being defeated and Jon cannot walk through that square. If you didn't move from the stairs (like I didn't move) you can appear to be stuck between all three and the stairs
    - Can't go back upstairs with no explanation as to why
    - Walk speed seems slower than when in the forest?
    - "...after his daughters death at those caves" - daughter's or daughters' (if multiple died)
    - "OH I AM GOING TO HAVE SO MUCH FUN MURDERING YOU ALL" We've only known this protag for like... five minutes and he needs to take about eighteen chill pills.
    - Dad's friend's house has shadows that do not make sense. Pick one side of the wall to have shadows. They can't be cast in every single direction.
    - Cannot enter the bedroom with the trees? Would be nice to have text pop up to explain.
    - Also, why are there trees in a bedroom? This entire map confuses me. There is no ground outside but there are trees and other objects?
    - You block off the player's ability to walk around the home when there are the Shadows with invisible blockages. At that point, maybe just have the event auto run when you walk into the room
    - "...and The six mages realized that their need for power and drew them mad" I can't tell what this is trying to say
    - You use a lot of unecessary commas overall >.<
    - "because he died for of me" ??
    - I don't know if it's an artifact of the map looping, but the bald guy will eventually be way in front of Jon
    - Walk speed super slow again
    - The large purple wall is inconsistent with how you use corners or don't
    - With the Gemy you typed out their weird speech pheonetically. When Arach destroys the wall, you just say *unknown language* and it's jarring for the player
    - "JESUS!" So Christianity exists in this world?
    - "THIS IS NOT THE TIME, LUKE" Why is Jon being called Luke?... oh okay it's some kind of storyline thing.
    - "I wish to teach you the spell....." should have some kind of visual there to indicate that, yes, it was learned. Or audio cue.
    - Cannot walk on cracked tiles
    - The "edge of the alliance" map overall is way, way too big
    - You gotta fix this walk speed thing. It's killing me to move around, even "dashing".
    - "I love you, and be carefull" Only one l in careful
    - "LETTER FROM DAD ADDED TO INVENTORY" shows up in red. Not necessary with little popup
    - MP cost on Lesser Curse is a little high. I wasted it on the first fight with a Shadow and with how low Jon's total MP is, even with the MP recover items I would only get to use it maybe 3-4 times.
    - Jon seems to miss when attacking the Shadows a LOT. Unclear if it's a balancing issue or a design choice for the enemy
    - Has the BGM changed at all this entire time? I can't remember but if it has, it hasn't been significantly different. A little bland after 30+ minutes playing.
    - Cannot equip Amrour of the Stone? Unclear if storyline related or not
    - Rare adventurer's armor may be too OP. No longer taking damage from Shadows
    - Not a lot of strategy in these fights. Hoping there will be more as the game goes on.
    - I literally was JUST prompted to save as I entered the room with the tent. Now being prompted again.
    - Careful on that switch/fadeout. The screen dimmed, came back, and the battleback shows the knocked out enemy and a new person to Jon's right. Spoils the scene for the player.
    - Guy with the tail seems REALLY large despite his map sprite being standard size
    - Suddenly FIREBALLS
    - "It was nessesary" - necessary
    - "I FEEL POWER FLOWING TROUGH EVERY VEIN!" - through
    - "Your dad you be" - would be?
    - Arach doesn't collapse until the raider guy turns away.
    - Every time that Jon yells "I'll kill you!" I get a little less interested in him as a character.
    - Why can't I follow after Tom/Raiderguy?
    - Why does Jon suddenly have a moustache?
    - If all of these shadows have no chance against mega-Jon, just have it be a map event for him to slash them and let the player move on instead of starting and finishing 1-hit fights. This would let me see all the one liners without forgetting them inbetween the fight screens.
    - "So magnifecent" - magnificent
    - at the very end of the map, the bandits can cross over into the center lava?
    - "Wy did I call him master?" - Why
    - "YOUR ONE OF THE MAGES?" - You're
  10. cabfe
    #10 Source
    I tried to play. To try is really the right verb.
    It's not because of your game, it's because any MV game is dead on my computer.
    I mean, it runs at 1 frame per second at the main menu. Like, literally 1. I can screen cap it if you want :cutesmile:
    I can run VX Ace games at 60 fps but MV is at 15 max on a blank map with no event nor scripts running. Worst 2D engine performance I ever saw.

    Anyway, this means that I went only a couple of minutes into the game before I quit and the only thing I can say regarding the game itself is that the italics used for the dialogue boxes are going too far to the right and the last few pixels of each end of line are cut when they're on the right edge of the box.
    I don't know the inner workings of MV, but I'd say that it should be solved by tweaking the dialogue box settings to add the equivalent of one extra character in the box's width automatic resizer process. Or maybe manually add an extra space.
    Sorry I can't help you more with your game.
    Ah, and the music was cool. I liked it.
  11. leenat40
    #11 Source
    @feckyeslife
    Thank you for playing. I would also like to tell you a small detail. Jon and Arach actually become the two main villains.
    The game also becomes open world after the prologue. Also, the women thing,and his constant anger get fully explained in the ending and trough the main storyline.
    Even when Richard says "You would love it, if I die" it does get explained in the story. If you have any more questions, ask me on Private Message. Also, from 1-10 what would you rate the demo?
    Also, would you like to play the second demo, when it's available?
  12. leenat40
    #12 Source
    @cabfe No problems.
    I am currently investing the cut off dialogue issues.
  13. feckyeslife
    #13 Source
    leenat40 said:
    Also, from 1-10 what would you rate the demo?
    Also, would you like to play the second demo, when it's available?
    I would probably place it at a 7/10? I see a lot of promise like I said, just certain things bumped it down bc I wasn't connecting to the characters and the fights got a little grindy.
    I would gladly play a second demo! I enjoy playtesting and giving feedback :kaopride:
  14. leenat40
    #14 Source
    feckyeslife said:
    I would probably place it at a 7/10? I see a lot of promise like I said, just certain things bumped it down bc I wasn't connecting to the characters and the fights got a little grindy.
    I would gladly play a second demo! I enjoy playtesting and giving feedback :kaopride:
    I see. Thanks. Also, the second demo will be available very soon. I am currently testing and improving it.
  15. leenat40
    #15 Source
    Hello, everybody!
    Today I've released a new demo of Chronicles Of Zemak. (The name of the game changed to "Ulfar: Dreams". This demo adds a new chapter, fixes some bugs and adds foreshadowing to the story to come!

    @feckyeslife @Blackyu @Abdulla Al-Farsi @lixerman99​
  16. Blackyu
    #16 Source
    Ooooh, goodie. I'll play some of it in my free time.
  17. Abdulla Al-Farsi
    #17 Source
    Wow!! I will play it as soon as possible!!

    Wait for my feedback :)
  18. leenat40
    #18 Source
    Well? Has anyone got thr chance to try it, yet? Maybe even found some secrets? :)
  19. leenat40
    #19 Source
    I forgot to mention that some scenes that will be in the final game are cut from this demo. Also, the demo chapter is longer in-game.
  20. feckyeslife
    #20 Source
    DL'ing now. Will update with feedback! ^_^