VXAce - Northwall v1.0.1

Hey, I tried your game, I just finished the cave/spider boss.  I really enjoyed it!   

It's funny, I've never watched or read Game of Thrones, and yet you're the second person in the last few days to mention that Northwall apparently has a GoT-ish vibe.

Base hit chances are 100% for players and 95% for enemies - you should never miss an attack or not do damage unless the enemy is specifically designed to have some sort of avoidance or damage reduction (which you will always have a way to deal with). I agree that that should be made more clear - Ben and Rick's abilities whose descriptions read "Can Miss" are a little misleading. I was trying to tell the player that impale is a guaranteed hit (and can remove enemy evasion), while flurry and poison spear will miss on high evade enemies. I only get about four words to do so, though, because of the constraints of the description box. I'll figure out some way to communicate it better.

I am not using the standard combat formula - as a general rule, a base attack or spell's damage is simply ATK - DEF or MAT - MDF, with a variance of 20%. So your ability's description should tell you the minimum and maximum damage it will do before enemy defenses are calculated (so, an ability that does 50-75 damage on an enemy with, say, 20 defense, will do 30-55 damage). I really want ability descriptions to pop up when you're selecting commands from the menu, so that I can show how much damage the base attack does, but I've received no responses from script requests. I don't really want to move the attack command into a sub-menu where I could do descriptions, either, so I still don't really have a solution for this problem until I find a scripter who can solve it.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the game! I do have a host of bug fixes that I've implemented after watching some of the most recent LP, and I will upload the newest version once the LP is finished being posted on Youtube. If you wanted to see what's changed, I keep a running log going in the original post under Change Log.

Played more! Wow, it's so good.  I have so much work to do, but I can't put this down.  Headed to Mount Flarus now.  You really have a talent for game making; this is great stuff.

EDIT Help! I'm stuck!  

EDIT #2 I figured it out...

I figured out by dumb luck that I had to press Q in order to switch to the other guy.  I know Q reset the puzzle in the axe tree thing, but you should remind the player to press Q here because I was convinced I was stuck. :)

I also have a question...

Seriously AMAZING game man, I cannot wait to get to the end tomorrow.  

Really glad I could make a game enjoyable enough that you were procrastinating on work for it. Thank you.

When you first start the section with the minion and Tilana, it mentions that you press Q to switch between the two of them. I could see how, if you read it quickly, or maybe save and then come back, you might forget about it because those are the only areas that make use of the special key. Perhaps I could create a visual overlay that says something like, "Q: switch control."

There are three total books of Galarand's you can collect - Tome, Codex, and Manual. The first time you turn any of them in, you get Angelic Form, and she basically gives you the bonus the book would give you, but permanently. So, Tome gives you Protective Aura and 5 MAT when you equip it - if you turn it in, you simply get a permanent 5 MAT increase and access to Protective Aura, thus freeing up your accessory slot for something else. If you didn't turn one in before you left, it just means you can only access that particular spell by equipping the accessory. One of the three is somewhat obscure to obtain, so I didn't put in any bonus for getting all of them - you get Suven's "ultimate" ability of Angelic Form as long as you find and turn in at least one.

And uh... You kind of might be at the end of what I've got. If you've done Varsena's puzzles and bosses in the final dungeon, and you've done both of Tilana's puzzles, that's as much as I've created. I'm still working on Tilana's boss, and then the last section of everything.

Oh god! I really wanted to see what happened.  Damn you for tantalizing me!  Haha, great job though.  

Hello there,

I've spoken to you a lot about the game already, but I wanted to have my comments on the forums of my overall impression.

The battle system is lovely. I never got bored and felt I could mash the attack button to progress. The encounter rate itself was well done - only in the mountain area did I end up exhausting the fights before reaching the end.

Characters had personality (especially my favorite bad guy). I wish there was a tiny bit more NPC interaction in Silth. I think a nice mini quest to get a key for the dungeon would work. With the occupants having to plan or rest so they don't have to leave and get in the way of the story.

The dialogue and story are so much fun. I may have been spoiled by this game! My expectations have been set high for RPG maker games.

As I mentioned in PMs, I really appreciate you taking the time to make a Let's Play of my game, amaSenpai. I was able to fix a good number of bugs and get some ideas for things I could improve upon.

I agree that East Silth needs a little more exploration in it - you're allowed the freedom to move around, but you're prevented from exploring any of the branching pathways. I also think it's odd that Suven makes such a big deal out of being a cleric who can help, but doesn't stop to heal anybody. I think once I finish the final dungeon, Silth will probably be a top priority to go back and spruce up.

Maybe I can make a comment about there being a key in Cosgrove's room to make sure people go up there and explore (and subsequently get the Frost Armor that's up there).

Thanks for all your effort in making those videos - I'll certainly keep you posted as I have further updates. I'm hoping the next big update will at least get the player to the credits, but I may have one more before then to just fix up bugs.

Just wanted to say i still check on the progress of this every now and then! i loved the demo and still look forward to the finished game!

Finally found some time to continue working on the project. Tilana's wing of the final dungeon is now complete, and players can experience her boss battle before meeting back up with Suven and Varsena. The playable section will end after a VERY SHOCKING (dun dun dun!) turn of events, but if you have played the demo since the last update in November, there isn't too much more for you. If you just wanted to experience the new boss battle (or catch the story progression), do feel free to shoot me a message and I'll set you up with a custom save file.


In addition to the new wing, a handful of fixes, tweaks, and changes have been included. Below is a comprehensive list of changes since the last update:


General


- Tilana's wing is now complete! Players can engage in her boss battle and finish up the side-sections of the final dungeon. Only the primary path remains...


- The party is now fully healed after the boss fight during the return to Northwall.


- The music for Tilana's final wing has been changed.


- A reminder of special action buttons during Tilana's wing in the final dungeon now appears in the corner of the screen.


Ability/item tweaks and balances


- The counterattack buff from consuming Lunar Blur using Lunar Madness has been reduced from 100% chance to 50% chance.


- New items have been added to the final dungeon leading up to the fork. They are:


-- Cursed Sickle. Can only be used by someone afflicted by pure darkness...


-- Cursed Jewel. Can only be used by someone capable of pure savagery...


- Personalized items for Tilana's final wing have been implemented. They are:


-- General's Brigandine, makes transform skills restore 5% MHP and grant 10% ATK for 1 action.


-- General's Left Claw: Grants Frenzy a 50% chance to restore 15 TP, allowing Tilana to stay in hybrid form longer.


-- General's Right Claw: Lunar buffs increase max HP by 10% for 3 turns and AGI by 50% for 2 actions.


- Varsena's ability Blaze has been redesigned. It now deals 70% MAT fire damage, down from 90% MAT, and applies a stacking debuff that does 2.5% of the enemy's MHP in fire damage per stack. Stacks 3 times. Blaze now only affects one target, instead of all enemies.


- The agility debuff from Varsena transforming into Despair has been reduced from 30% to 10%.


Enemy tweaks and balances


- During Varsena's solo boss battle, Chloe will now cast reflect magic randomly on any of her allies instead of only Lady Celandine. She will also continue to use it when there are only 2 members left instead of only when all 3 are up, though she will not use it if she is the only remaining enemy.


Bug Fixes


- One of the screens in the cave dungeon does not have a battleback. This has been fixed.


- Scanning the web, eggs, or spiderlings in the cave dungeon boss battle previously did nothing. They will now display their appropriate information.


- A state called "Egg Cooldown" appears in the State List. This has been fixed.


- Ouro was not properly using items during his battle. This has been fixed.


- Some lights in the introduction were improperly phasing in and out repeatedly. This has been fixed.


- Focus was able to be used from the menu. This has been fixed.


- The forest boss was skipping her turn if you removed Lunar Strength early via Crippling Strike. This has been fixed.


- Suven mentions Tilana possibly being cursed after Marion has already explicitly stated so. This has been fixed.


- The party is supposed to start with a few items and a little gold after Coravis's tutorial battle. Somewhere, that got removed. This has been fixed.


- Tilana mentions that Silth is warring during the desert conversation, but she shouldn't know anything about it at that point in time. This has been fixed.


- Victor has some odd behavior during Tilana's departure in Aylan. This has been fixed.


- The gabs that used to occur in Mount Flarus that were supposed to have been removed pop up again in a small hallway in Mount Flarus. This has been fixed.


- In one of the rooms in the final dungeon, you were able to walk under the torches. This has been fixed.


- The bandit in the west section of Tilana's puzzle in the final dungeon that explains how to do the puzzle, as well as all the story for why you're there and who he is, doesn't do any of that because an autorun was set to an action button. This has been fixed.


- Escaping from battles would cause the various revert events to not occur. This has been fixed.


- One of the icons (the claw for several of Tilana's fury abilities) was a pixel off in the database. This has been fixed.


- Lunar Wound was incorrectly doing holy damage instead of physical damage. This has been fixed.


- Lunar Madness was not properly restoring health when consuming the hybrid form version of lycanthropic regen. This has been fixed.


- Crippling Slash was not properly removing Lunar Strength. This has been fixed.


- A torch in the opening sequence was able to be walked through. This has been fixed.


I've also updated a few of the screenshots in the original post to reflect that all enemy battlers now use sprites.

Small update today. Special thanks to StewMega for his stream of my game, allowing me to spot a handful of fairly major bugs, fixes, and desired changes to improve gameplay.


General


- Removed a significant amount of expository dialogue in the intro.


- Simplified Guilt's puzzle a little bit.


-- Previously, two switches had effects on two "doors," requiring that you step on one of them a second time to open the way. This has been removed so that each switch interacts with one door. The puzzle should be significantly easier to solve now.


- The choice to save Tilana or "kill" her has been changed from "Save her/..." to "Stop Marion and save her/Hesitate and let her die" to make the consequences of the choice more clear.


Ability/item tweaks and balances

- The focus ability now has information stating how long it lasts.


- A very minor typo was fixed in the Mace's description.


- Holy Barrage no longer applies blind to enemies. It instead applies Holy Charge to the user for 4 turns, causing the next Searing Light to deal 20% more damage.


-- Blind was a debuff that trivialized battles when it worked and was completely useless when it didn't. Its chance to land also went against the spirit of the game's combat strategy that rewarded planning and instead rewarded random luck. Holy Barrage was also meant to be an AoE ability, and seeing it used on bosses for an attempt at blinding a single target was a very unintentional consequence. Now it should more properly fill its AoE role, but still has the option to be used for single targets if the player is setting up a particularly strong Searing Light through various buffs.


Enemy tweaks and balances


- None.


Bug Fixes


- After the first tutorial battles, the player is able to leave Northwall before doing the battle with the worms. This has been fixed.


- Suven still had revert after angelic form wore off. This has been fixed.


- The player was able to move Tilana around during the cutscene after her section in the final dungeon, potentially freezing the game. This has been fixed.


- The "Tilana Lives" switch was being turned on once the player got to the last dungeon, as well as a host of other odd behaviors, as a result of an event that was for the purposes of playtesting that never got removed. This has been fixed.


- Tilana's Improved Hybrid Form was using the wrong counterattack skill. This has been fixed.


- Tilana was able to transform and use items at the start of Victor's battle. This has been fixed.


- The Regrowth Flask was being added to the player's inventory during Tilana's section of the final dungeon. This has been fixed.


- The W key was failing to turn the player 90 degrees in place during Tilana's puzzle section in the final dungeon. This has been fixed.

Been awhile since the last update - still getting work in on the project when I'm able to find time.


I've been focusing on the final boss battle whenever I'm able to do some work, which has largely entailed figuring out interesting abilities and mechanics and creating custom animations and graphics. So far, 11 new animations have been created (including several from scratch), with some additional animations done through common events and pictures, 13 new abilities have been generated, a few new sprites have been added, music has been selected, and some minor behavior has been created. There are still a handful of abilities that will need to be created, then the process of fleshing out behavior will begin before ultimately culminating in a whole lot of playtesting for balancing.


Once that's all done, my attention will be focused on creating the maps, lighting, and eventing to get the party from where the game left off to the final boss I've been putting so much time into!


I do also have a new link for people who have played the game before. I created a "boss run" in my playtest map that will basically just run all the boss battles in the game back to back, appropriately changing out your party and upgrading your equipment as you go. So if you want to help me playtest some more, or you just really enjoyed the combat and want to take another run through it, you can download that version here (spoiler warnings for those who haven't finished the project yet!): https://www.dropbox.com/s/4d8dnr19uymjig6/NorthwallBossTest.exe?dl=0


Just talk to the guy in blue to get going, and you'll get a breather to save the game after every few battles.


As a side note, I've also been busy attending full-time web development classes to learn HTML, CSS, and full-stack JavaScript for the last few months, so I'll be creating a website for Northwall when I have the time for that, as well. I'll keep you posted!


EDIT: Changes made have been uploaded to the project download. They are:


Bug Fixes


- Lady Celandine's ability Repulse was not playing an animation, despite an animation being selected for the ability. The cause of the issue is unknown, but a workaround has been implemented.


- The heal from Raven's Scythe was not properly taking into account an ability's variance. This has been fixed.


- Lunar Blur was removing Immobile, but not making the user immune to it. This has been fixed.


- Cleanse and unburden were not removing immobile. This has been fixed.


- Cleanse and Remorse will now play the recovery sound effect when their heals are applied.


Enemy Balancing and Tweaks


- The enemy ability poison bite has had its damage coefficient lowered from 1.4 to 1.2.


- The cave spider now starts with its web and egg abilities on cooldown, so that if you remove either at the beginning of the fight, they are not immediately replaced.


Player Balancing and Tweaks


- The energy drain buff from energy sap now lasts 3 actions, up from 2.


- Blaze will now update its DoT on the target as soon as damage is dealt, instead of a moment after, as a result of its formula being moved to a scriptlet instead of a common event.


General


- There is now a brief text box explaining that time has passed between the intro event and the village.


- Refactored the common event for Stygian Drain to be significantly more efficient.

Bit of a progress update, no changes to the currently available demo.


The final boss of the game has been completed, barring minor balancing and numbers tweaks that will likely continue to go on as more playtesting is done. This means the only major pieces still left are some mapping, some eventing, a couple minor battles to let you play with new skills, and the credits!


On a side note, I've developed a webpage you can visit to wander around Northwall's world map and learn about its major locations and important figures - it should work for all devices, mobile or desktop. Check it out! Just click on the arrows to move yourself around.

That link is really cool! you should definitely include it in a TXT with the game download.

hey just wanted to say i'm really looking forward to this game being finished! i had the urge to replay it the other day, but i figured i might as well wait until it's complete, so that i can see the ending (I'm still dying to find out the truth about Garaland).   

Dunno if its a bug dude or I'm just silly but as soon as the intro cutscene plays and Suven leaves with the priest you get transferred to the outside.  There is no character to move and i'm moving around disappeared no clue where i'm going.


When I hit certain areas Suven says I should leave through the main gate, than because i couldn't see my character,


I ended up opening a door and after a quick cutscene I am controlling only Ben in a battle.  He's got no face graphic.


I can't hit the enemy (bandit), Bens says I should Impale it but I have no TP and both attacking and getting hit grant me none.


So I'm just stuck getting dead.


Restarted and this time I moved the invisible character down the way (maybe through the main gate).  Cue a cutscene several days later with Suven at what looks like a camp after NorthWall was abandoned.

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, padr - I've been quite swamped with other work and didn't receive the notification that I had gotten a reply to the thread.


There was a bug where an event was set to action and not autorun for testing purposes, and I fixed it locally, but it turns out I hadn't pushed up the changes. I'm in the process of doing so right now. It should let you play the game properly once it's all uploaded.


If you find some time to give it another try, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'll try and keep up on the thread a bit better.


Bug Fixes


- During the introduction, an event that allowed Ben and Rick's conversation to happen, Rick joining the party, and turning the player visible again was not firing due to accidentally being left on action trigger instead of autorun. This has been fixed.


- During Victor's fight, he was breaking out of stuns and enraging if you stunned him twice. This was not the full intention - he was only supposed to do that if you stunned him too frequently. Now, the stun tracker decrements by 1 every 5 turns.


Player Balancing and Tweaks



- Chill and Diseased, when applied by the player, now only reduce AGI by 15% instead of 50% and 25%, respectively.


- Diseased, when applied by the player, now only reduces ATK by 15% instead of 25%.


- Slow, when applied by the player, now reduces AGI by 20% instead of 40%.


- Varsena's Rage, Guilt, and Despair transformations no longer cost TP and instead cost 15 MP.


- Raven's Scythe heal increased from 10% of damage done to 20%.


General


- Victor's Custom Slip Damage script removed and all DoTs changed to standard negative HRG ex-parameters. The script was causing frequent incompatibility errors with the project and the only real drawback is the enemies on Mount Flarus now no longer absorb fire DoT damage.

Ayyy, new forum update! Snazzy.

Word around the rumor mill is that Northwall may be appearing in an upcoming Game Jam, so I did another playthrough and fixed up a few things to make sure it was in good condition. The list of changes can be found below:

Bug Fixes
- Fixed up the looping on the track "All This" (the Northwall battle music leading up to the worm boss) to restart in a smoother manner.
- Fixed an issue with light graphics displaying after the exit from Northwall when they shouldn't be. Again.
- Fixed a color issue on some autotiles.
- Cleanse was not removing the updated form of slow. This has been fixed.

General
- Removed balloon icon from storehouse conversation in the civilian encampment.
- Removed balloon icon from Aylan Wood conversation at the halfway point.
- Removed balloon icon from first conversation with Tilana.
- Removed balloon icon from first conversation with Ivan.
- Updated the pre-basement warning in East Silth to make it more obvious it's just a sign to save, not to tell the player they shouldn't go in there.
- You can now choose to help the soldier who's been wounded on the second floor of East Silth before the battle with Celandine. If you do, he will live through the battle. Otherwise, he dies.

Enemy Balancing and Tweaks
- Reworked the Ouro battle. Previously, fighting Ouro meant you got no rewards except a slightly lesser amount of experience. Now, you'll receive whatever non-tome items were in his chest that Ouro didn't use during the fight.

I've also been making time for getting the last bit of the game finished up whenever I can, but time for hobbies is few and far between. Here are a couple images previewing some of the things I've been working on, though:

Fantastic story and the game is so dark. Top class so far.

Big announcement today!

Northwall is officially playable from start to finish and is now considered to be in the final stages of project development!

Highlights of today's update:

General
- The final section of the last dungeon has been finished and the game can now be played to completion. Find out what Maestro's been up to the whole time, the truth about Galarand, and the fates of our three main characters.
- A balloon icon has been removed during the conversation in Aylan Woods.

Bug fixes
- The lights after the intro have been fixed. Yet again. They get fixed on every update and somehow break on every update.
- Ouro was not properly giving out partial rewards if you defeat him in combat after incorrectly guessing his password or smashing him if you immediately try either of those options without selecting "no" first. This has been fixed.
- If you save the soldier in Silth, he was still graphically displaying as dead, as well as changing graphics when you interacted with him. This has been fixed.
- There was a previous bug where one player was not able to save his game in any new slots. The cause of this bug was never determined, and I have been unable to recreate it during my playtesting. For now, it will be assumed as fixed.


This project thread's original post has been updated to include the full credits. I will be contacting a number of playtesters to double check that I'm crediting them the way they would like, but if you happen to see your name in the credits and you'd like it to be something other than what's written, please send me a PM and let me know!

Something I've been putting off until Northwall was finished, as well, was getting a new title screen. It's had a placeholder image from the RTP from the start, but I'd like to commission an artist for a new title splash. I'd also like to commission a splash screen for the ending, as currently the last fade to black then transitions back to the title screen. I'm not 100% for sure on what I'd like the artwork to be yet, but if that's something you would be interested in helping with, let me know!

I've just completed a speed run of my game to make sure one last time that things work properly and you can, in fact, play to completion. It took me about 2.5 hours, though I expect most people will take about 6-7 hours for their first time through. However, I'm going to leave the project in development for now until I get a few more people to give it a run and clean up any lingering bugs or issues I may not have discovered.

If you have recently played the project and your save file doesn't work due to updates to the scripts, and you'd like me to create a custom save file for you that will move you to a particular point in the game, please send me a message and let me know.

A big thank you to everyone who has helped with the development of this game! I've had long stretches (months at a time, even) of not working on it and it's something that's constantly been gnawing at the back of my thoughts for years. Sometimes I thought I'd never reach this point. It's been an interesting journey and a hell of a learning experience in game design. That said, I am extremely proud of what I've created in all that time and elated to finally be releasing a full game and not just a demo or a "project in progress."

Congratulations! Seems to be an epic project, so will give it a go.
[Already love the intro...]