VXAce - [Demo Ver. 1.4] A Shadow's Echo [Story-Focused Dark Fantasy]

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Started by cthulhusquid 52 posts Page 1 of 3 View original ↗
  1. cthulhusquid
    #1 Source
    Content Warning: Contains use of alcohol, mild language.

    This game was formally known as Battle Castle: Shadow from the Past, but I changed a lot of names so it's no longer possible to use that title.

    Screenshot (323).png

    Story

    The Kingdom of Valentinshire has gone through two immensely destructive wars with the Shadow Daemons, leaving innumerable dead over a span of a century. With the Daemon's defeat in the Second Great War, Valentinshire has recovered to a point of unparalleled prosperity.
    Never ones to forget, the Daemons have already planned their return, amassing their foul legions to start the war against mankind anew.

    Rudovo, far away in the frozen World's Crown, has escaped these machinations targeting the Kingdom. It's safe, but for how much longer? Maybe not as long as one thinks, as evil festers in the lonely places of the world...

    Main Characters

    DraxusFace.png
    Emil: A young adult living in Rudovo, he’s more interested in books and stories than real life. When not working in the local copper mine, he reads, writes letters to his pen pal, or listens to the war stories of his nearby neighbor. Lacking self confidence, he relies on self-reflection and inner debates to make important decisions, even if the conclusion is wrong.
    JosephFace.png
    Anton: Another young adult and fellow miner living in Rudovo, Anton is Emil's best friend. He’s generally jovial, likes to crack jokes, and drink. Unlike Emil, he prefers to wing it and experience life to the fullest. However, if someone insults him or his friends, he loses his temper easily, and won’t hesitate to tell others when he doesn’t like something.
    RalirFace.png
    Gareth: A Mage Knight who serves the Kingdom of Valentinshire, Gareth is considered a good but emotionally distant leader. He spends his free time studying historical texts, walking around in nearby forests, or teaching Mage Order recruits at Waterford Castle. While he appears stoic, he bottles up his true feelings until they can’t be contained any longer.

    World Features
    • Focus on immersion. Enter a world of nature, tradition, and spirituality, scarred by the ravages of war.
    • Varied and atmospheric soundtrack. Featuring acoustic folk, cinematic pieces, dungeon synth, and metal.
    • Valuable currency. You can't afford everything right off the bat, so you’ll have to save for what you really want and make hard choices.
    • Fullscreen functionality. Press F5 in-game to toggle.
    Character Features
    • Believable Characters. No cardboard cutouts here, each party member has their own motivations, idiosyncrasies, and viewpoints. There are no chosen ones or heroes, just those in certain places at certain times.
    • Build Customization. Every time you level up, you gain a Learning Point, which can be spent on a large number of different skills. (Not included in demo)
    • Corruption System. With each stolen item and grasp at easy power, you stray further and further down the path of evil. Will you turn back before it’s too late, or embrace the darkness within? As the plot progresses, you can learn new skills based on your Corruption level, and play through different story branches.
      Corruption System Spoilers
      If you have less than 25 Corruption, you will automatically choose the “good” option at a pivotal point in the game. If you are between 25 and 75, you can choose what option you want, and if you have more than 75 you will automatically choose the “evil” option.

    Combat Features
    • Consequence of Action. Every spell cast or swing of a weapon makes you tired, adding levels of Exhaustion you will have to manage with food and rest. Exhaustion decreases your evasion, and mildly decreases defense.
    • Skill Synergy. All weapons have a skill which either inflicts a negative effect, or takes advantage of one to deal more damage. For instance, swords can deal way more damage to enemies that are Knocked Down, ending combat swiftly.
    • Easily Identifiable Icons. All negative state icons have been carefully chosen to help the player with decision making where every turn counts.
    • Encounter Zones and Optional Random Encounters. Instead of random encounters, the world map has specific events, called Encounter Zones, where you can activate encounters at will. On smaller maps, you are given the option to turn random encounters off if you want to explore, or keep them on for an increased challenge. You also have the option of activating encounters at will on the same maps, much like the Encounter Zones on the world map. (Not included in demo)
    Download Link:
    Version 1.4

    Screenshots:

    Screenshot (320).png

    Screenshot (319).png

    Screenshot (322).png

    Screenshot (321).png
  2. HexMozart88
    #2 Source
    All right, so I didn't get very far, but a few thoughts.

    - The music is good but really loud. I'd turn it down just a bit.
    - There's a bit of a text loop where the player is stuck reading the same text over and over outside of the Inn.
    - Your font is slightly too small.
    - If it's a quest based game, perhaps add some quest pointers (like, a minimap with little icons for the general area to find the quests so you aren't wandering aimlessly)
    - Shouldn't the main character have some reaction to the hooded guy in the forest considering it was just in his dream?

    Some Good Stuff:
    - Your mapping is pretty good. Especially the town map.
    - I like the quest system, I'd just add more to it.
  3. cthulhusquid
    #3 Source
    HexMozart88 said:
    All right, so I didn't get very far, but a few thoughts.

    - The music is good but really loud. I'd turn it down just a bit.
    - There's a bit of a text loop where the player is stuck reading the same text over and over outside of the Inn.
    - Your font is slightly too small.
    - If it's a quest based game, perhaps add some quest pointers (like, a minimap with little icons for the general area to find the quests so you aren't wandering aimlessly)
    - Shouldn't the main character have some reaction to the hooded guy in the forest considering it was just in his dream?

    Some Good Stuff:
    - Your mapping is pretty good. Especially the town map.
    - I like the quest system, I'd just add more to it.
    Do you remember which Inn the text loop was at?

    Anyway, I can easily decrease the music volume, change the font size, as well as adding some reactions to the cultist in the forest. A minimap is also a good idea, so I'll look into that. Thanks for the feedback so far!
  4. HexMozart88
    #4 Source
    It was to the left of the map, and there was a mailbox next to it.
  5. cthulhusquid
    #5 Source
    What did the text loop say? I'm assuming you're talking about the Inn in Mountain Village (the snow map).
  6. HexMozart88
    #6 Source
    Whatever the text was to the right of the inn. I can't remember it exactly now, but it was to the right of the inn for sure.
    And yes. I didn't get past the snow village. So far that's the only inn for me.
  7. cthulhusquid
    #7 Source
    HexMozart88 said:
    Whatever the text was to the right of the inn. I can't remember it exactly now, but it was to the right of the inn for sure.
    And yes. I didn't get past the snow village. So far that's the only inn for me.
    Can you take a screenshot please? I've looked multiple times and can't find any text loops. I've interacted with every event and all of them work fine. The only thing I can think of is you were interacting with
    one of the player touch events and tried to move when one of the text boxes were up, I don't know.
  8. HexMozart88
    #8 Source
    Screenshot (541).png
    That one. I think it's because it's a touch event rather than an action button.
  9. cthulhusquid
    #9 Source
    I can change that (and similar events) to action buttons instead, that will be no problem. Thanks for letting me know, I hope you get further in the demo!
  10. cthulhusquid
    #10 Source
    New version is out with some minor updates, mainly from feedback. Sorry for the delay!
    • Decreased music volume a bit.
    • Changed multiple player touch events to action button activated.
    • Made Draxus react to the cultist in the forest.
    • Increased font size slightly.
  11. Cythera
    #11 Source
    I played this game up to the Wood Village - for me, that was just over an hour of gameplay - and I have mixed feelings on it. On one hand, it's clear a lot of thought went into world building and the lore. There's lots of attention to small details. On the other hand, there were some consistency issues, and a glaring issue of balance.
    I'll keep playing and give it a bit more time, but I am very wary of the combat, and I'll get to that.
    Starting with the positives!
    Positives
    • Nice music!
    • Lots of interactable items!
    • Good map layouts overall
    • The quip from the girl in the pub about the tax auditor is funny – albeit slightly out of place in an obviously fantasy/medieval setting
    • I like how the quest journal pops up whenever I complete/get a quest
    • Subtle lighting effects really add to the atmosphere
    • Custom game icon; nice touch
    • Really like the lighting adjustment when I go near the old well
    • Cat meows at me – 10/10. Maybe give him a route movement ‘turn to player’ when interacted with though, otherwise he just flips around wildly haha
    • The state popups in combat are nice; I like knowing when my states landed, one way or another
    • The text after combat on the battle results screens is great – a nice bonus, AND lots of opportunity for character development & personality there
    • The equipment I can buy from the guard in the mountain village is well-priced
    • From what I’ve seen, there’s some nice worldbuilding and thought gone into the lore!
    Less-Than-Positives
    • Some typos – the blonde girl in the inn for example says ‘here’ when it should be ‘her’ when telling the player to go talk to Jessica. At the very beginning, ‘forehead’ is misspelled as ‘forhead’
    • Sometimes I think there’s a bit too much ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’. I can see something isn’t right by the well; I’m not sure I need Joseph telling me about it in the detail he does
    • ‘Hey, there’s a strange cloaked guy that resembles the things in my nightmares by the well! Let’s follow him into the well!’ I feel that’s a little too obvious and sudden an inciting incident – maybe give them another reason to go into the well? How about the guy from the pub dropped an item when he fled, and has asked Draxus to go get it? Then inside the well, he can encounter the cloaked person and be roped into the cult? If someone in a robe in a dark forest asked me to enter a well with them, nightmares or not, I’d run and never look back! I feel like no sane person, even in an RPG, would go into the well!
    • That battle music against the cultists is way too happy for the situation haha. Good music, but I don't feel it fits there
    • I wish I could check what those states are doing that are being applied to me
    • Some consistency issues; sometimes characters speaking have face graphics; sometimes they don't. Sometimes characters speaking have the full text box; sometimes it's just the dimmed version of the text box
    I'm going to touch on the combat and balancing elsewhere, as I feel it really hurts the game as it is now.
    Bugs/Issues/Oversights
    • The doors to the south-most houses in the first village are blocked by trees. Now I’m worried I’m missing loot!
    • Draxus tells the innkeeper he hasn’t met Mary or Jessica yet, even if I talk to them first
    • So Stamina is SP, which is TP. First, TP doesn’t show in the menu (I wasted my baked bread trying this sadly..) and I’m not sure if that was intentional. Second, the shops still show ‘TP’ (picture 1)
    • I try to exit the village; says I need permission from Lord Travor. I go there, says I need to speak with the guard first. I speak with the guard, and he says it’s cold and can’t wait for his shift to end – the same thing he said before. This was after I got the quest to go to the old well, so I was under the impression the old well was outside the town. The text on the exit confused me since I was under the impression I needed to speak to the lord to leave town to find the well in order to progress the game, but turns out the well is on the other side of town. I was confused for a few minutes before I figured out it wasn’t a game-breaking issue with improper switches. Maybe if the well quest isn’t complete yet, have Draxus say something along the lines of ‘I recall the well being on the east side of town…’
    • I can walk on the trees! Wee! (2) I can enter at any point along the top tiles of the tree
    • The gold pouches require you to select an actor to use it on; can you set the target to ‘none’?
    • Jam pastries apply ‘holy water’ state?
    • Moving NPC can block hallways, pathways, and doors
    • When talking to the guard after killing the cultists in the well: ‘Me and Joseph’….should be ‘Joseph and I’ unless that’s how Draxus always talks (unique speech patterns on characters and all that) but I’ve seen nothing that indicates he has a different speech pattern thus far, so I’ll count that as a typo
    • Game over screen doesn’t fit the resolution (3)
    • I talked to the orc-creature in the wood village before proceeding with the main quest, and the conversation includes a character not yet in my party – Ralir
    • More tileset passable issues (4)
    1.png
    2.png
    3.png
    No, that's not edited; the game over screen doesn't fit the resolution for some weird reason.
    4.png
    Now, my biggest gripe with the game...
    Combat
    The combat is not balanced. It is not difficult; it is unbalanced. That's a very fine line, and extremely easy to cross when trying to make a difficult game. Everyone has a different 'level' of difficulty; someone may find one game easy while another finds it very hard. I'm going to address the points that make this combat unbalanced rather than difficult.
    • My dodge (guard?) has a cooldown. Sure, that's fine; it's a powerful skill! But the enemies have the same dodge ability that drastically raises evasion for what appears to be two turns, and they do not have the same cooldown. I watched an enemy use Dodge three times in a row, and I kept missing every one of my attacks
    • No immediate heal items or skills. All these 'heal' items and skills give a heal over time. Okay, that's cool actually. But I need to survive to the end of the turn to get the heal over time, and they were along the lines of +10% heal over 2 turns. That's nothing, especially when enemies were dealing approx. 15% of my health in an attack - and critical hits could do up to 60%! I could apply the heal effect at the start of combat...except it wears off after X amount of turns. So I'm left guessing when to use it - will the enemies hit this character and I need to heal him NOW, or will they attack the other character who can take a few more hits before needing health? I had so little control over my own health
    • States - in particular, CC states - are too much. I got stunned by a bug enemy for SIX turns? Two enemies against two characters, one stunned for 6 turns. Each enemy was doing 10-15% of my max health each hit, depending on who they targeted. Game over, especially since I had no immediate heals. And I had no way to remove the state either.
    • I came across an enemy that did 40-50 damage * 2 every turn. That's approx. 90% of my max health gone in one hit - from its basic attack. Game over.
    In difficult combat, the player can do something to survive. They can strategize, use skills and items, and make it through if they plan. Unbalanced combat, the player has limited to no control over battle flow and is at the mercy of RNG.

    Overall, the combat seriously hurts the game here sadly! There's some good stuff in this game! Nice attention to detail, obvious care and thought gone into the world. But the unbalanced combat doesn't do it justice. Majority of the balancing can be improved by making some heal skills/items give health right away, instead of ONLY a heal-over-time state.
    I'm going to keep playing, though for how long I don't know. Depends on the combat, and the RNG of it unfortunately.
    Balance the combat, clean up some of the consistency issues, and you've got something with really nice potential here!
  12. cthulhusquid
    #12 Source
    @Cythera
    Thank you for the very detailed feedback! :kaoluv:I'll try to fix the obvious bugs, typos, and oversights in the next day or two (I have no idea what to do with the game over screen though). :kaoswt2:

    On the Less-Than-Positives:
    • For the "telling instead of showing", a lot of my favorite authors are the old-school prosy types like Lovecraft, and the tiles don't quite do justice to the type of atmosphere I want, so I make do through descriptive dialogue. I could add in some overlays, so you can see just how closed off that part of the forest is, while making Joseph's dialogue less lengthy.
    • I can make the beginning more drawn out, and add more mystery to the discovery of the cult.
    • For the battle music, I can try and figure something out. The battle music gets a lot darker later on in the game, so this is an isolated incident.
    • I might add in an in-game encyclopedia, that could help with understanding states better.
    • The dialogue boxes all have faces, but they scroll to show all the text. I can change it so the number of lines are limited in each box. The dim boxes are supposed to represent characters whispering to each other, muttering under their breath, thoughts, etc, but I can differentiate them better.
    As for your other concerns regarding combat:
    • I can get rid of enemy's Dodge skill, and let them keep their built-in evasion. This will prevent most misses but there will still be a surprise one or two to keep people on their toes. Most have a 10% chance, a couple are higher.
    • I can add some instant healing to items and healing skills, that should take some of the pressure off. There are instant heal skills in the game but they are on expensive items.
    • I think that was the Bog Spirit you fought, and yeah, I agree they are overpowered and need to be nerfed. All of the enemies, except for the ones in the well, probably need that. :kaosigh:
    When I come out with the next update, I hope you continue playing it! There's still a lot of the story to go!
  13. Cythera
    #13 Source
    I think altering the Dodge on enemies and giving immediate heals will make your combat much more balanced already! :) I see you want to make combat difficult, which is great! That's a very hard thing to get right, and super easy to cross into unbalanced/unfair territory. Giving immediate heals is by far the biggest thing; everything else I mentioned I could even live with as is.
    I just had so little control over my own health in combat :kaocry:

    Keep with it! I'll keep an eye out for the next update.
  14. cthulhusquid
    #14 Source
    Very quick patch, version 0.2 is now up. I fixed all of the bugs and oversights pointed out to me (except the game over resolution, still looking into that). Some of the bigger changes:
    • Meadow Flower and Monk's Bundle items now have an instant heal effect, along with their heal over time. The Healing Poultice skill also now has an instant heal effect (not too much though!)
    • Enemies no longer have the same Dodge skill you do, instead they rely on their passive 10-15% rate.
    • Nerfed some of the stuns enemies can inflict to much lower values.
    • Slightly nerfed the overworld enemies' stats, they should be more manageable if you want to battle after leaving Mountain Village.
    • Gold pouches no longer require choosing an actor to activate.
    • Added some words of warning with the Reaper's quest in Wood Village when talking to his quarry, before the choice to attack them comes up. This quest may look low level, but it's not. It's very difficult, with some extremely good rewards.
    • Made the river sound in Mountain Village fade out when you go into the forest, and come back when you leave. Whoooo, realism! :rhappy:
    Other changes, like spaced out dialogue, SP gauges outside of battle, and a longer and more realistic beginning, will come in a later patch.
  15. cthulhusquid
    #15 Source
    New game over screen, this time it matches the resolution!

    EDIT: New version is uploaded.

    GameOver.png
  16. kyonides
    #16 Source
    Quite violent indeed. I wonder where you've got the inspiration from...
  17. Beregon
    #17 Source
    I reached Sand Castle, but then I hit a roadblock.

    Sand Castle:

    Spoiler
    That daemon boss fight in Sand Castle seems to be ridiculously hard and pretty much a DPS check? The boss regenerates 100 HP each round and even with Draxus wielding the best sword with damage bonus against daemons that he can buy in battle castle and Joseph wielding the dagger with the same bonus, I can't even touch that. Even if Ralir casts that magic spell. I am almost level 6 btw., with Ralir level 5.

    The other issue is that the boss sometimes does an attack that does so much damage that even a full-HP character gets KO'd in one round, making me question if I could get through even if the regen was cut in half.

    I don't know if I am supposed to grind all the way to level 10 (Leveling up doesn't seem to help much, +1 to each stat and +10 HP isn't really that noticeable), but even if that was the answer, it feels over-the-top. Especially since the XP requirements seem to grow exponentially after level 4. And the XP rewards are too small when you take into account how long each battle takes.

    This is a very early boss, actually the first real one in the game if you don't count the tutorial fight in the well, so I'd expect something more straightforward.

    Overall, this definitely has potential and it has a lot of good things in it, but here's some of the areas where it could use improvement:

    Spoiler
    - You can walk on top of the roof of the Battle Castle Inn if you approach it from the north and I doubt that's intentional.

    - I got a quest from Mr. Glavik to deliver a letter to a merchant in Battle Castle. I don't remember if he said anything more about where exactly to find this merchant, he probably did, but I talked to every merchant and what feels like almost all NPCs in Battle Castle and I can't find him. The quest log is useless and Mr. Glavik just asks you if you delivered the letter already. Maybe he could atleast reiterate who's the guy you are supposed to deliver the letter to. Or better yet, make the message in the quest log actually useful.

    - The Sand Kingdom desert area has way too many random encounters, especially if you take into account how strong some of them are. The whole area feels like a huge difficulty spike compared to what came previously. And getting into a random encounter every 5 steps is annoying.

    - I can appreciate taking inspiration and making a lot of the dialogue sound like it came from an old epic poem (atleast in tone), but the tone somewhat clashes with "down to earth" moments and tone of the story and characters like Joseph. Certain characters talk like their dialogue was written by a poet, but a lot of it is just in the style of the typical old JRPG (the Mage Knight that gives you a quest to deliver a present to his sister in particular comes to mind here). To say nothing of Joseph, who talks normally most of the time, but then suddenly activates epic poetry mode at the banishment shrine in Wood Village. If you want to use this style, then I feel, you gotta go all out. Maybe even with an omniscient narrator chiming in from time to time, saying something like: "And our brave hero set out on his journey to Battle Castle!" Or maybe the characters talk normally, but the Narrator chimes in with poetic descriptions from time to time. Like, instead of Joseph lamenting the destruction of the forest in the Wood Village scene all poetic, he could talk like he normally does and then the Narrator chimes in with: "Joseph looked horrified at the destruction surrounding the cultist, as the dark forces at work around the banishment shrine appeared to be choking the life out of nature itself!" or something along those lines. If you want to give this the feeling that you are experiencing some ancient epic that's been written in-universe about the events of this game.

    - The NPCs in general could use a lot more brevity in their dialogue. Also, sometimes you can talk to a random guy and he suddenly burts into a long monologue about something or other. Maybe add dialogue options to some, so you can actually ask to get the exposition.

    - The encounter with the Reaper should feel a lot more epic then it does, especially if you want to go the "epic poem" style. At this point, it feels like you could just replace this being with a random Bounty Hunter asking for help and nothing would change.

    - The desert village investigation could use some clarity. Like, the first clue you are supposed to find is a book in the only building that doesn't have the doors closed. Fine. But after you read the book, you get a huge chunk of text. Fine. But in order to get the quest objective finished, you need to activate the book a second time. Why? Might as well be a single scene, there didn't seem to be anything that would prevent this. All it did was waste a few minutes of my time as I thought that the book was just some long random flavor text, which isn't all that unusual in this game. Then you can finally enter the Inn, which you couldn't before (could use a better reason or maybe a something like "let's go check the Inn, maybe there's people there.") and you are supposed to find a key to the Inn basement. Well, I only discovered that the Inn has a basement by randomly interacting with the crate after finding the key. A crate that before only said Locked when interacted with. Which makes it seem like the crate is locked. How about you change it to instead say something like: "There's a trapdoor under this crate, probably leading to the basement, but I need to find the key first."

    - The Plains battle area was locked as soon as Draxus and Joseph reached level 5, but Ralir was barely at level 4 and thus became the weak link of the party. Maybe atleast have Ralir start with the same level and maybe also XP as Draxus?

    - Ralir doesn't have Healing Poultice or any healing spell for that matter, so he's mostly a liability compared to Joseph and Draxus and has to spam items just to keep up with them. Maybe give him some healing spell atleast?

    Also, if you want more feedback, maybe you could also upload the demo to more sites, like maybe rpgmaker.net or itch.io? Just a suggestion.
  18. cthulhusquid
    #18 Source
    @Beregon
    Beregon said:
    I reached Sand Castle, but then I hit a roadblock.

    Sand Castle:

    Spoiler
    That daemon boss fight in Sand Castle seems to be ridiculously hard and pretty much a DPS check? The boss regenerates 100 HP each round and even with Draxus wielding the best sword with damage bonus against daemons that he can buy in battle castle and Joseph wielding the dagger with the same bonus, I can't even touch that. Even if Ralir casts that magic spell. I am almost level 6 btw., with Ralir level 5.

    The other issue is that the boss sometimes does an attack that does so much damage that even a full-HP character gets KO'd in one round, making me question if I could get through even if the regen was cut in half.

    I don't know if I am supposed to grind all the way to level 10 (Leveling up doesn't seem to help much, +1 to each stat and +10 HP isn't really that noticeable), but even if that was the answer, it feels over-the-top. Especially since the XP requirements seem to grow exponentially after level 4. And the XP rewards are too small when you take into account how long each battle takes.

    This is a very early boss, actually the first real one in the game if you don't count the tutorial fight in the well, so I'd expect something more straightforward.

    Overall, this definitely has potential and it has a lot of good things in it, but here's some of the areas where it could use improvement:

    Spoiler
    - You can walk on top of the roof of the Battle Castle Inn if you approach it from the north and I doubt that's intentional.

    - I got a quest from Mr. Glavik to deliver a letter to a merchant in Battle Castle. I don't remember if he said anything more about where exactly to find this merchant, he probably did, but I talked to every merchant and what feels like almost all NPCs in Battle Castle and I can't find him. The quest log is useless and Mr. Glavik just asks you if you delivered the letter already. Maybe he could atleast reiterate who's the guy you are supposed to deliver the letter to. Or better yet, make the message in the quest log actually useful.

    - The Sand Kingdom desert area has way too many random encounters, especially if you take into account how strong some of them are. The whole area feels like a huge difficulty spike compared to what came previously. And getting into a random encounter every 5 steps is annoying.

    - I can appreciate taking inspiration and making a lot of the dialogue sound like it came from an old epic poem (atleast in tone), but the tone somewhat clashes with "down to earth" moments and tone of the story and characters like Joseph. Certain characters talk like their dialogue was written by a poet, but a lot of it is just in the style of the typical old JRPG (the Mage Knight that gives you a quest to deliver a present to his sister in particular comes to mind here). To say nothing of Joseph, who talks normally most of the time, but then suddenly activates epic poetry mode at the banishment shrine in Wood Village. If you want to use this style, then I feel, you gotta go all out. Maybe even with an omniscient narrator chiming in from time to time, saying something like: "And our brave hero set out on his journey to Battle Castle!" Or maybe the characters talk normally, but the Narrator chimes in with poetic descriptions from time to time. Like, instead of Joseph lamenting the destruction of the forest in the Wood Village scene all poetic, he could talk like he normally does and then the Narrator chimes in with: "Joseph looked horrified at the destruction surrounding the cultist, as the dark forces at work around the banishment shrine appeared to be choking the life out of nature itself!" or something along those lines. If you want to give this the feeling that you are experiencing some ancient epic that's been written in-universe about the events of this game.

    - The NPCs in general could use a lot more brevity in their dialogue. Also, sometimes you can talk to a random guy and he suddenly burts into a long monologue about something or other. Maybe add dialogue options to some, so you can actually ask to get the exposition.

    - The encounter with the Reaper should feel a lot more epic then it does, especially if you want to go the "epic poem" style. At this point, it feels like you could just replace this being with a random Bounty Hunter asking for help and nothing would change.

    - The desert village investigation could use some clarity. Like, the first clue you are supposed to find is a book in the only building that doesn't have the doors closed. Fine. But after you read the book, you get a huge chunk of text. Fine. But in order to get the quest objective finished, you need to activate the book a second time. Why? Might as well be a single scene, there didn't seem to be anything that would prevent this. All it did was waste a few minutes of my time as I thought that the book was just some long random flavor text, which isn't all that unusual in this game. Then you can finally enter the Inn, which you couldn't before (could use a better reason or maybe a something like "let's go check the Inn, maybe there's people there.") and you are supposed to find a key to the Inn basement. Well, I only discovered that the Inn has a basement by randomly interacting with the crate after finding the key. A crate that before only said Locked when interacted with. Which makes it seem like the crate is locked. How about you change it to instead say something like: "There's a trapdoor under this crate, probably leading to the basement, but I need to find the key first."

    - The Plains battle area was locked as soon as Draxus and Joseph reached level 5, but Ralir was barely at level 4 and thus became the weak link of the party. Maybe atleast have Ralir start with the same level and maybe also XP as Draxus?

    - Ralir doesn't have Healing Poultice or any healing spell for that matter, so he's mostly a liability compared to Joseph and Draxus and has to spam items just to keep up with them. Maybe give him some healing spell atleast?

    Also, if you want more feedback, maybe you could also upload the demo to more sites, like maybe rpgmaker.net or itch.io? Just a suggestion.

    Thank you for the feedback! To reply to all of your points:
    • The boss in Sand Village is supposed to be pretty difficult, but yes, I can nerf it.
    • The tileset fix is easy.
    • With Mr. Glavik's mail quest, you're supposed to talk to the merchant in Mountain Village, in front of the tent. I can definitely see how the quest journal wasn't clear, now that I looked at it again.
    • I can reduce the encounter rate in the South Desert. I thought it was kind of low already but I can tweak it some more.
    • The dialog and the long text walls are already in the process of getting re-written, thanks to an episode that Studio Blue did. I'm getting rid of most of the fluff, making dialog a lot more realistic, and making sure that characters are consistent with their speech and actions.
    • The reaper's quest is main plot foreshadowing,
      Spoiler
      since you find out that Daemons aren't the only evil things causing issues in the world.
      I'll try to think of a way to make it more epic.
    • I can take a look at the Sand Village investigation, and make it more natural. The way the quest was built is really old and can do with a clarity make-over.
    • The Plains and Forest Battle Zones lock to prevent grinding the low level areas. Ralir already starts at the same level as Draxus, but I'll change it to include the same XP.
    • I'm already in the process of changing the class skills. Ralir does have one, but I will make him get it earlier.
  19. Beregon
    #19 Source
    cthulhusquid said:
    @Beregon


    Thank you for the feedback! To reply to all of your points:
    • The boss in Sand Village is supposed to be pretty difficult, but yes, I can nerf it.
    • The tileset fix is easy.
    • With Mr. Glavik's mail quest, you're supposed to talk to the merchant in Mountain Village, in front of the tent. I can definitely see how the quest journal wasn't clear, now that I looked at it again.
    • I can reduce the encounter rate in the South Desert. I thought it was kind of low already but I can tweak it some more.
    • The dialog and the long text walls are already in the process of getting re-written, thanks to an episode that Studio Blue did. I'm getting rid of most of the fluff, making dialog a lot more realistic, and making sure that characters are consistent with their speech and actions.
    • The reaper's quest is main plot foreshadowing,
      Spoiler
      since you find out that Daemons aren't the only evil things causing issues in the world.
      I'll try to think of a way to make it more epic.
    • I can take a look at the Sand Village investigation, and make it more natural. The way the quest was built is really old and can do with a clarity make-over.
    • The Plains and Forest Battle Zones lock to prevent grinding the low level areas. Ralir already starts at the same level as Draxus, but I'll change it to include the same XP.
    • I'm already in the process of changing the class skills. Ralir does have one, but I will make him get it earlier.

    - Yeah, well, I got in 5 random encounters before even reaching the village, not to mention the ones I got into on the way to sand castle (and Sand Castle is really close to the village). This was the average amount, as I had to go back and forth between the village quite a lot to grind and buy better equipment (which didn't seem to matter much with the boss).

    - I don't know, the boss definitely seems overtuned. It would be one thing if I felt I atleast had a chance in my current state but still didn't make it, but at this point, it seems more like an unwinnable boss fight you are supposed to lose. I wasted all of the revive items I had on that boss. Any tips?

    Anyway, hope you finish this. :)
  20. cthulhusquid
    #20 Source
    @Beregon
    Beregon said:
    - Yeah, well, I got in 5 random encounters before even reaching the village, not to mention the ones I got into on the way to sand castle (and Sand Castle is really close to the village). This was the average amount, as I had to go back and forth between the village quite a lot to grind and buy better equipment (which didn't seem to matter much with the boss).

    - I don't know, the boss definitely seems overtuned. It would be one thing if I felt I atleast had a chance in my current state but still didn't make it, but at this point, it seems more like an unwinnable boss fight you are supposed to lose. I wasted all of the revive items I had on that boss. Any tips?

    Anyway, hope you finish this. :)
    There's a good chunk of the demo left after the boss, so he is beatable. Damage over time affects will lower it's regeneration rate and you can use items that give Shadow resistance to lower damage taken. It's weak to Crystal and Elemental Damage.
    I would also preemptively use healing poultice, and spam dodge as much as possible.
    The Fire Bolt Ring would be a good investment, since the skill it gives you does Elemental Damage and has a DoT effect.

    Also, stay close to the Sand Village as close as possible if you want to farm enemies in that zone.